Captive
by jolirouge
Summary: Jack saves a girl from certain death, but soon finds that she hides a secret that will send them on a frantic voyage for a treasure and pit them against the very people Jack hoped to avoid. Will they survive? Will Jack ever realize his true feelings? R
1. One

**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created. But everything else belongs to Disney.

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**Update as of 1/2/08 (Please read!)**: At this point, I know very well where this is going. This is a note mostly to those of you who randomly click on this story (which I thank you profusely for doing!): Don't worry, there is a plot, this is going somewhere.  
Give _Captive_ a chance, and I'm sure that you'll find that this isn't the usual sappy romance with self-insert Mary Sues. I'm trying very hard to make Helen, the OC in this, be as complex as possible. I like conflict too much to bore you with happy endings!  
Please read and review! (:

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**Author's Note**: This is my first fanfic, so cut me a little slack. I have no idea where this is going yet; I just got the idea one day and decided to try it out. We'll see where it goes. 

If you like my writing at all, please leave a review!

**Chapter One**

The capture went smoothly, as captures are wont to go when the Jolly Roger makes itself known.

Jack Sparrow stood on the deck of the merchant ship, staring contentedly up at the black flag snapping in the wind. Second to the sea, the Jolly Roger, unscathed and triumphantly raised, was his favorite sight in the world. It meant that the _Black Pearl_ was riding lower and ever lower in the water, and that he had more and more money to spend on rum and whores back in port. He missed his rum most of all.

"Captain?"

Jack forced himself to stop examining his ship and turned to face his First Mate.

"The crew is secure, all in irons. We searched them; they were well-armed, apparently. Ready for a fight." Gibbs motioned at a haphazard pile of swords, cutlasses, pistols, rifles, and all manner of weapons.

"Apparently," Jack repeated, a note of amusement in his voice. He was sure that, had the merchant ship had enough time to prepare, they would have put up a good fight indeed. But as it were, the _Pearl_ encountered them purely by surprise. "And the loot?"

"Most of our men are below. From what I've seen, it seems they were carrying spices and fabric and the like."

Jack nodded and clapped Gibbs on the shoulder. "Good job, then." He passed the line of pitiful sailors. Most kept their heads low, staring at the warped wood of the deck; others stared at him with varying degrees of hatred and awe. All of them looked as if they expected to die.

He had to step over a few fallen bodies on his way to the stairs belowdecks. With every step, his shoes left a perfect, rusty red print in his wake. He wiped his boot against a tattered canvas in annoyance. What an inconvenience.

On the cramped decks below, his scant crew bustled around quickly, heaps of bags or lengths of fabric in their arms. He stopped one of his men. "How much longer?"

The sailor grinned. "They were carrying tons, Captain. We'll be rich!"

Jack stepped aside and the man stumbled up the steps. He walked mostly silent among his men, only continuing to the next level below after he had completely surveyed the level he was on. On one of the lower decks, where the air was cool and moist, and the sturdy curved walls creaked with the pressure, he stopped in front of a sturdy door. He tried pulling it open, but it was locked. His men hadn't gotten there yet. He was surprised the door hadn't been busted open; humans by nature are very curious, greedy pirates maybe even more so.

Judging that the door was too thick to merely shoot off the lock, Jack looked around the deck for something to open the door with. He wasn't sure what he was looking for until he came across a sturdy ax laying on the floor.

The ax bit into the rotting wood with satisfying ease. It was only a few minutes before he completely destroyed the lock. The door swung open easily as the ship rose and tipped on an ocean swell. Jack held the ax at the ready in one hand, half expecting a hoard of sailors to come rampaging out at him.

There was no one inside. It was almost completely dark, so he grabbed a candle and walked inside carefully. _The captain's secret stash?_ he wondered.

The candle's light reflected off of miscellaneous bottles and other unidentifiable metallic objects. Jack's interest focused immediately on the bottles. He took down one. Wine from France, 1646. "Well, well, Captain," Jack muttered under his breath. He grinned and set the candle down on a crate so he could pry out the cork.

Someone was breathing in the darkness behind him. He turned quickly, but the small halo of light from the candle didn't reach to the other side of the room. He set the wine bottle down carefully and picked up the candle. "Who's there?"

He walked a few paces, then saw the familiar vertical pattern of iron bars. The brig. A merchant ship with a brig. Jack raised his eyebrows and slowly walked closer, holding one hand over the flame so it wouldn't extinguish.

A groan, the dull scrape of iron against wood.

Jack stopped as soon as he was close enough to see by the dim candlelight. He lifted his hand from the flame.

All he could see was a tangled mass of bodies. People curled against each other, around each other, under each other. Most of them looked dead, and some of them obviously were.

He took the steps by twos and strode over to where the crew of the merchantman was huddling together in self-pity. "Who has the key to the brig?"

No one answered, but a few of the men looked up in surprise.

Jack stopped in front of the captain. "Where is the key?"

The man looked at first as if he were going to deny everything, feign innocence. He sighed in frustration. As if to justify himself, he said, "They're all criminals."

Jack crossed his arms. "So am I, which might be why I have such a humane interest in their survival. Where is the key?"

The captain remained tightlipped.

"Search him," Jack said to one of his crew. The key was tucked inside a secret pocket in his jacket. Key in hand, Jack hurried back down belowdecks.

Gibbs followed after him quickly. "Captain, what are you doing?"

"Get some water, some food. A lot of it. Is there a surgeon on this ship?" He walked straight up to the iron bars of the brig and unlocked the door. Some bodies of sailors, half-dead or dead already, fell to the floor at his feet. Gibbs stopped in the doorway, his mouth slightly open. "Go, now. Get some men down here, too. But make sure that you leave enough up there to watch the prisoners."

As Gibbs ran up to the main deck, Jack worked at untangling the prisoners. Most of them were dead; some had even been shot or stabbed, their wounds swollen and infected. The live ones were close to madness. They looked at Jack like he was the Devil himself.

Reinforcements filtered in, and Jack stood back to let them finish the job. The bottle of French wine was still standing on the floor next to some crates. He picked it up with his candle and walked across the rest of the room.

It did appear to be mostly the captain's personal effects, except for the prisoners. Decorative swords hung off pegs in the walls, coats were folded neatly in boxes, warped books filled many of the small nooks and crannies.

He heard noise coming from the far corner of the room. He approached it without fear this time, sure that if anyone had actually planned on ambushing him, they would have done it before, when he was alone and defenseless. Whoever was hiding had to be afraid of him.

Lifting the candle above his head, he squinted into the darkness.

Two eyes stared back at him. All he could see of them was the pale reflection of the candle flame. The shadowy figure flinched backwards suddenly. Jack stopped.

Very slowly, he crouched down in an attempt to make himself as unthreatening as possible. He spoke as if to a child: "Here now, it's all right. I'm not going to hurt you." When no protests were raised, Jack inched closer, until the light from the candle lit this captive's face.

It was a girl. She curled close to the wall, practically hugging it, like she was trying to sink into it and disappear. Her dress – probably of fine quality at some point in its life – was torn and stained. Her hands were cuffed, and they pressed together in a grotesque plea for mercy.

"Captain–" Gibbs walked across the room toward him, stopping only when his badly adjusted eyes finally saw the dim form of the girl. He paused. "I don't suppose the key will work on her, too."

"Doubtful."

"I'll get it from the captain."

Jack turned back to the girl, and she shrank further away from him. She looked half-conscious, starved, or sleep-deprived, or both. "What's your name?"

Her wide eyes relaxed a little, but her mouth remained closed. Her attention drifted to the men laid out on the deck behind Jack. Only a few of them had enough life left in them to stir and groan and mumble. The room was eerily close and quiet.

"Were you a passenger on their ship?" He didn't stop for and answer. "They'll be fine. Don't worry."

Gibbs was long in returning, and Jack's impatience with the merchant captain grew. He sat with his back against the wall, next to the girl, and darkly contemplated shooting the uncooperative man as an example for the rest.

Finally, Gibbs walked across the room to him. "Fucking bastard. He wouldn't give it up. He almost took off my finger, when I finally did find it." He held up his right hand, and in the dim light, Jack could see faint crescent moons of blood on Gibbs' index finger. He handed Jack the key. "This had better work, otherwise I have something to say to that son of a bitch." Gibbs always got a bit cranky when injured.

The girl had curled weakly on the floor, with her curved back pressed against the wall. She didn't flinch away from Jack when he reached for her hands – not much, at least – but merely watched distantly as he unlocked the irons. Long, swollen sores wrapped around her wrists. Pus oozed out of infected wounds around her protruding bones. Jack watched her eyes roll back in her head in a dead faint; all he could see was eerie white where there should have been irises and pupils. She was still breathing.

Gibbs waited at his shoulder for orders. Jack reached out and shut her eyelids, so now she looked to be peacefully asleep. "Bring any live men above for now. We will decide what to do with the captain and his crew later. We have to make sure at least some of the prisoners survive."

Jack scooped the unconscious girl up in his arms. Even as emaciated as she was, she was still heavy enough. She made no sign of waking up. He had to step over corpses as he made his way back up to the main deck.

A few of the live prisoners were already laid out on the deck. Some of his crew helped them sit up to drink water. He laid the girl at the end of the short line, then turned to the merchantman crew. "I would be interested to hear your explanation for all this," he said, addressing the captain.

The man stared stubbornly down at his knees.

"It wasn't meant to be a polite question. Answer me." He held his pistol loosely in his hand at his side.

He remained silent, but shifted just a little away from the gun, almost imperceptibly.

Jack cocked it. "Now, you may think you have the advantage, because I'm asking you for information. But, you see, I have a very short temper, and I would just as rather shoot you as I would force it out of you."

The man sneered. "They deserve everything they got."

Jack's hand didn't relax on his pistol.


	2. Two

**Author's Note**: This is going to be a fairly long note, but bear with me here. It contains **REALLY IMORTANT** information about the setting of the plot. Did I catch your attention? Good.

_Captive_ takes place after the second movie, but without the last scene with Jack ever occurring. So, suspend your disbelief, because he's alive and well. Make up the story of how he got out of the Kraken, if you wish. No other story threads from the other movie have been resolved.

**Stop reading here if you just want to read the story.**

I'm sorry this chapter is a bit short, but now that I actually have a direction for the story (my first chapter, I had no idea where it was going), I'll be more inclined to write, so you might see updates in less than a week.

And remember, your continued support, through nice words or favorites or watches or whatever, will give me the dedication to finish this story! Thanks!

**Chapter Two**

Quick flashes of light danced across her blurred vision as she woke up, like little lightning fingers between storm clouds. The smell of musty, rotting something almost overpowered her senses as she grew more aware of her surroundings; someone had draped a stained canvas sack over her, rolled up another and used it to pillow her head.

It was a sack wasn't it?

Her attention focused on the folds of the fabric that formed valleys and mountains and oceans over her form, and she remembered the hills back at home. The low hills, soft and green, covered in flowers; Bab saying, "See the woman there, the man. They're giants. They're sleeping."

There was a bright button on the canvas. She lifted a hand up weakly and pulled it closer. The design was blurred and out of focus; she ran her finger along the abstract lines. She could smell the metal from so far away, a dead, sharp smell.

Her hands touched something sticky. The instinctive hysteria that she had pushed back so easily struggled forth. _Blood, blood, blood, blood!_

She tore the canvas away from her weakly, so that it only slid partway off of her before settling on the floor next to her waist. Her clothes were wet with the same stickiness. _Blood, blood!_ She tried propping herself up on her elbows, but her arms gave out and she cracked her head against the floor. Fazed, her hands still felt frantically for the wound. _Blood!_

_Oh God, I don't want to die I think I'm oh God ogodogod blood oh please God._

She didn't realize she was speaking aloud until someone ran to her side and shook her harshly. "Wake up, wake up, Miss."

She tried to make the voice into her father's, or Albert's, or at least Captain Seward's. It wasn't, though; it was deeper and harsher, the type of voice more accustomed to shouting than to conversing softly. Her hands shot out and pushed the prominent features flat on the looming face.

The man grabbed her wrists and held them away. She tried to struggle away from him, but his grip on her wrists wouldn't loosen. It was one of the sailors, it had to be. She pushed away from him as far as she could.

"Calm down. You're all right. Are you hungry? You must be hungry."

She whimpered and shook her head. But before she could resist, there was a stale slice of bread pushing against her lips. The bread tasted like wood, dry and hard. But she realized how hungry her body was, even if her brain was focused on other things. She finished that one and a whole other slice. When she seemed to be absorbed in eating, the man let her hands go and helped her sit.

"What's your name?"

Her head lolled against his shoulder, and she kept her eyes closed. She whispered faintly.

"Helen? All right, Helen." He wrapped an arm under her legs, grunted, and stood up. Her neck ached, everything ached. "You're safe – safer – with us." He walked up the stairs; she could feel his arms straining to hold her up. His gait leveled out and the air was cooler, crisper, brighter. She closed her eyes against the sudden sunlight.

Then they were walking into close darkness again. Heavy doors swung shut behind them, cutting off the sunlight.

"I thought I told you _not_ to disturb me." It was a new voice, another she didn't recognize. "Oh." She slit open her eyes and tried to distinguish dark shadows from darker shadows. She barely made out a table and a figure sitting behind it, silhouetted against the clouded glass windows.

The man carrying her stopped suddenly. "I'm sorry, Captain. She woke up, and I didn't know what else to do, and I figured you would probably want to question her."

"Captain" stood and walked over to them. "The others?"

"She's the first one awake."

He stood above her and looked down. His face was a formless shadow. He laid a hand suddenly on her stomach and picked at the material. Speaking over her, he asked, "She was shot?" She tried to force his hands away.

"No; she was wearing the captain's coat." They moved across the room, and the man set her down on something soft.

She rubbed her hands over her eyes and struggled up so her back was pressed against the wall. Her neck couldn't support the weight of her head, so she let it rest against her shoulder. The cabin was eerily similar to Captain Seward's, but then she realized that it had been his coat that she was wearing. It was his blood that stiffened her shirt. He was gone.

The bed creaked and the mattress compressed, and Helen slumped over with it. Hands held her up so she didn't fall over the side of the bed onto the floor. "You may go, Gibbs." The slur in his voice completely removed from him any semblance of polite society.

The room was quiet for a moment, except for the Gibbs' lurching footfalls. "Jack." He looked away from her and back toward the bright doorway. "What should I do with the others?"

Jack was quiet, but stared fixedly in Gibbs' direction. Slowly, as if still considering another option, he said, "If they look like they won't make it, shoot them. We can't support so many extra mouths."

"Aye, Captain." The door closed behind him, and the room slowly faded back to darkness.

The light from the thick windows was watery at best, but there were a few candles lit around the room. Helen couldn't see his face still, and everything else around her was still blurry. Her stomach growled fitfully.

He turned back to her and shifted her position as if she were a porcelain doll, until she was laying on her back with her head on a pillow. Her eyes were adjusting slowly to the dim light, but his features gradually sharpened, and she could distinguish his mouth and nose and eyes. She could smell the alcohol on him. This drunkard, this was the captain?

When she was comfortable on the bed, he finally met her gaze. He didn't break their stare, and she was the first to look away. He looked smug.

"What's your name, love?"

"Helen," she said, her voice louder this time. But even that small effort exhausted her.

He nodded, not really listening to her, with other things on his mind. His fingers traced the welts around her wrists. "Why were you on that ship, Helen?"

She was a horrible liar. She tried not to meet his eyes, to look behind him at the swinging lantern suspended from the low ceiling, but he took her chin in his hand and she had to meet his eyes. All her muscles twitched convulsively, and she started shivering without really feeling cold.

"Hmm? You can tell me."

She started shivering harder and squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly and uncertainly, she opened her mouth. Jack leaned forward to hear her better. She felt like she was going to be sick. "I- I don't know," she stammered.

Jack sat back up with his mouth pressed in a stern line. "Of course you do."

Helen shook her head, her eyes still shut tightly. She worried that if he met her gaze he would easily be able to read the events of the past few months.

Jack looked down at her with an exasperated expression. He knew she was lying, she could tell. He was trying to find the way to get her to crack. Distantly, he asked, "Are you cold?" and pulled a blanket up over her shoulders.

Minutes passed in silence. Finally, Jack said, "Well, I suppose that can wait for another day." He stood. "Although, one of the sailors, before he died, did tell us what you were doing here." He looked back at her for a reaction.

Helen suddenly stopped shivering. "What did he say?" she asked uneasily, uncomfortably aware of the steady gaze he was giving her. She wasn't sure which of the sailors would have said anything, or if any of them really even knew. She supposed the captain might have said something, or maybe he put two and two together and figured out why she was under such close watch…. She quickly closed her mouth and decided not to give him any more reason to suspect her.

Unfortunately, her sudden taciturnity piqued his interest. "Oh, I think you know what he said." He quickly sat back on the bed next to her.

He must not know, she decided with a bit of relief. If he knew, he would have said something, he would have thrown her overboard, he would have killed her. But he wouldn't wait for her to say it first.

So, it was to be a battle of wills. She closed her eyes in an exaggeratedly tired fashion and pretended to fall asleep. But Jack didn't move away, not at first. After at least ten minutes, though, he grew restless and bored. Helen felt him pull the blanket further over her shoulder so it brushed her cheek, and then the weak mattress sprang back in his wake.

And then she really was asleep.


	3. Three

**Author's Note**: Writing this was a very sad occasion for me, because I had to kill off a character that I like very much. Just a warning (I hope that didn't give it away). Still having fun, though. I might be kind of getting the hang of it. Or maybe not.  
On with the show.

**Chapter 3**

The moment she was sure the men's conditions were stable, she searched out a quiet corner – something very hard to come by on such a compact ship. The crew, accustomed to her presence, nodded at her as she passed them on her way down to the lower decks. It was a bright day, and most of the men were enjoying the mild weather, so she was alone as far as she could tell. Even after a week, Helen was still unable to remember all the faces, so a head-count was virtually impossible.

Down at the end of one of the small hallways, she found a mostly abandoned storeroom. She folded herself inside, careful to keep her dress hem away from some unidentifiable rotting food on the floor.

She set her candle on one of the low shelves and sat on a pile of folded coarse sacks that appeared to mostly be dry. A fine layer of dust pillowed out from beneath her as she sat. Helen waited for a few minutes, listening carefully to the passage outside and watching the closed door. No one had followed her.

From the hem of her dress, she produced the slender blade she had stolen earlier that day. It was dull and tarnished, but strong and small enough for her use. With only slight hesitation, she sliced methodically through a series of messy, but closely-placed and tightly-pulled stitches at the neck of her dress. They stretched from one shoulder to the other, but she focused mainly on the ones in the center.

When all the stitches were cut, she gingerly reached a hand down the empty space between the two layers of fabric.

She pulled out a small letter, well-worn as if it had been opened and unfolded many times. After securing the knife back in the hem of her dress, she took the candle in one hand, and held the letter close to her face.

There were only three short sentences–

_The Heart is safe. As agreed, it is – hidden. Keep this safe, keep it safe.  
–Beckett_

–but nothing could have made her more curious. She had spent the last weeks – months – living in feverish fear that someone might discover it, and that she wouldn't ever learn what the letter was about. She read it over and over again now, consciously keeping the paper far away from the wavering flame.

When she was on her fifth read-through, the door creaked open. She looked up slowly. She was almost convinced it was just the heaving of the ship until she saw the boots.

Had she been a vulgar woman, she would have cursed aloud; instead, she mentally cursed whatever streak of luck had been plaguing her recently. She stood demurely, not looking up at the man standing in the doorway. In a last weak attempt, she hid the papers behind her skirt.

A heavily ringed hand took the candle from her, and then he stepped into the closet with her. Her eyes widened, and she took a few shuffles backwards, almost falling over if it hadn't been for the wall behind her before. Even with her back pressed firmly against the wall, her hands digging into her back, he was standing less than a foot away.

Jack grinned. "What, a party? And you didn't invite me?" With a more serious tone – although the grin never left his face – he said, "You shouldn't be sneaking around the ship like this. Might get lost, or fall down the stairs or something." He peered closer at her. "You _are_ looking pale."

Maybe he hadn't seen it. With as little movement as she could manage, she folded the letter back up into its small square. "I'm fine. I just – I needed to get away from – everything."

"Right." He stepped back, candle still in his hand, a finger curling elegantly around the iron loop.

Helen squeezed past him, making sure to keep the letter on the opposite side of her body from him. She couldn't identify the sudden instinctive force that told her to keep the letter secret. It was important, Helen knew, even if she didn't know exactly why. Best to keep it hidden until she could figure out what it was.

She was halfway out the doorway, when Jack suddenly grabbed her right arm with such a force that she was whirled around. Jack's expression was suddenly dangerous, akin to that he had given to Captain Seward. Before he killed him.

He forcefully pried open her fist that had closed tightly around the crumpled paper. The candle on the floor illuminated him eerily from below, his high cheekbones casting long shadows up his forehead.

"What is this?" He held the letter in one hand, her wrist in the other.

"Nothing," she said. Her expression gave her away. "It's – it's a – love letter. Give it back."

"It's not." He directed her into the closet so he could easily block her inside. He stood in the doorway as he unfolded the letter. "You thought that you could hide this from me? Maybe the captain was right that you're all criminals, not worth sparing."

"No, _please_," she tried desperately. But it was too late. He looked down at the paper in his hand, clearly expecting to discover some plot against him, or some written confession, or something worse.

Helen backed against the wall, retreated into a gap between two shelves in the corner. She watched his face carefully and looked around for something she could use to escape. Her thoughts turned momentarily to the knife, but she sank down to sit on the floor. It was no use. If she threatened him, then what would she do? She was on his ship, in the middle of the ocean, all alone and with no one to protect her.

Jack finished reading the letter. He held it in front of him for almost a minute, frozen. His cheeks were paler than before, even under his dark, leathery tan, and he wet his dry lips.

And then he did something she hadn't expected: he smiled at her. It was thin and strained, but it was a smile.

Very slowly, he said, "Where did you get this?"

"I found it," Helen said hesitantly. It wasn't the complete truth, but she had found it, after all. He didn't need to know how, or where, or on who.

Jack stared at her for a second then passed his hand holding the letter over his eyes, still smiling. "A love letter," he said and started laughing. "Honestly, a love letter. Did you honestly expect me to believe that?" His mood went from giddy to furious to giddy again, and Helen didn't know what to think.

He stepped aside grandly and swept his hand wide to motion her out of the closet. "After you."

She kept as far away from him as she squeezed out of the close space. She couldn't understand this sudden change of mood, completely opposite from before. She had expected him to read the letter and at least be angry, for her hiding something. But what that something was, she had no idea. Jack seemed to, though.

They started up the stairs to the main deck. "Where are we going?" she asked. It was a silly question on a ship, as there weren't very many places to go, but she was wary.

He was still smiling. "To my cabin. I don't believe a word you said, and I intend to get the truth. Honesty is very important to me, after all."

None of the sailors looked surprised to see them walking across the deck together, although a few watched her for a few scant moments before returning to whatever work they had been doing before. _I'm in quite a state, aren't I?_ She tried to calm herself down.

Jack was always between her and the door, but he made sure to make it clear that she wasn't being held prisoner. He let her choose her chair and even offered her a drink. When she refused, he shrugged and took a large, celebratory gulp for himself.

"What was the letter about?" she asked carefully when he made no move to interrogate her.

"Oh, no you don't. You're going to answer _my_ questions, as I'm not only the captain of this ship and therefore emperor and everything else of this floating country, but I also _saved your life_. You're going to answer _my_ questions."

Helen sat back in her chair, her lips pressed tightly together. It would be dangerous to make up a story on a whim; he already seemed to know what it was about, and she was at a great disadvantage.

"Where did you find this? Or, did someone give it to you?" He sat down behind the huge table that dominated the center of the room. Loose maps and tattered books littered the surface of it and lay in small, untidy piles on the floor beneath it.

She stared quietly at the letter clutched in his hand. She couldn't meet his eyes. "I said I found it."

"Where?"

Helen tried to keep her answers as vague as possible. "I was in the Colonies."

Jack took another mouthful of the drink he had offered her earlier. It was a dirty brown color, some type of alcohol. Helen didn't know enough about alcohol to know what kind. "Yes, but where did you find it?"

"It was on the street." She rubbed the palms of her hands uneasily on her lap. They felt warm and sticky.

"Where on the street?"

Helen opened her mouth and closed it again after a moment of frantic thought. Whenever someone put her on the spot like this, her thoughts turned to molasses, and she could hardly remember her own name.

Jack leaned forward. "I don't know why you're lying to me, love," he said softly, "because out of all the people you'll meet, I might be the only ally you have."

"What makes you say that?" Her arms were crossed, and she leaned back in the chair, hoping to erase any of the guilt she had shown before by acting overly confident.

"Because I know you killed someone to get this."

The room went silent, and for a while, Helen couldn't even hear the ever-present creak of the wooden ship and the canvas above and the splash of the calm ocean that surrounded them. She couldn't manage to make even a whisper.

Jack's eyebrows disappeared beneath the brim of his hat. He mirrored her posture, leaning back in his chair. "That was a guess. You _did_ kill someone." His voice was accusing and mocking at the same time, but she sensed that there was more to his ease than met the eye.

She was still having trouble focusing on anything but the past that was replaying itself in front of her.

The gun, smoke curling out of the barrel, mist over the marshes. It was heavy in her hand and warm. The corpse, still warm and only half-dead, with glazed eyes and blood blossoming from his chest. All the blood.

"Hey." She looked up suddenly. Her face was pale and almost green. "Who did you kill?" Jack repeated.

_It will be good_, she told herself. _No one knows, no one that is your friend._ But could she trust him?

She wet her lips. He could kill her if he wanted. She had looked death in its blind eye before.

"The Admiral of the Royal Navy… James Norrington."


	4. Four

**Author's Note**: Sorry for the delay (there was one, wasn't there? My sense of time is all screwed up). I keep getting more ideas for events later in the story, which will hopefully encourage me to write faster to get there sooner. But who knows what will happen, really, because these characters always seem to know what they want to do better than me. It's really hard writing these chapters so far apart; I have to go back and read the other chapters before I remember where I was.

I always like to think that relationships between enemies are more complex than just hate. To really hate someone, I think you have to respect them on some level.

**Chapter 4**

Jack stared at the woman sitting across from him for a long time. After a few minutes of dead silence, he noticed his lips had pulled back into a feral smile.

But he wasn't happy.

Was he?

Norrington was done. He almost asked her to say it again, just to hear the words in the air – _Norrington is dead_. But a sudden wave of nausea made him press his lips into a thin line and sit up straight in his chair, just staring at her. _Norrington is dead._

"Did… did you know him?" she ventured quietly.

He stood suddenly, his leg muscles spasming and cramping, and walked quickly around the room once, then sat down in his chair again. "Yeah, yeah I knew him." His hands moved restlessly without his noticing. "Yeah. He tried to kill me. He would have killed me." He started to say something, something between a rebuke and gratitude, but he thought better of it and shut his mouth. And took out his gun instead.

Helen was off her chair as soon as the gun was in sight. By the time Jack looked up, faintly aware of what he was doing, she was hiding behind a low chest at the foot of his bed. He set the gun down on the table carefully. A second later, as if he thought better of it, he reached over and put it in a drawer in the long table. She didn't come out of hiding.

"So he's really dead." She didn't say anything. He motioned impatiently for her to sit down again. The initial restlessness was wearing off.

That should have been his bullet in Norrington's head.

But she had done it for him, so at least the Navy wasn't chasing after him for that, too.

Helen walked out slowly, but didn't get closer than ten feet away from the table.

"Sit." She must have heard something in his tone that she didn't want to fight, because she was sitting across from him again, with her back straight against the back of the chair and her hands folded in her lap. "So he's dead?"

"Yes." She paused, waiting for a reaction from him, before speaking quickly in a flood of confessions and assurances. "I didn't mean to, but he was – he was – I thought he was going to hurt me. And then before I knew it he was down on the ground and my hands were feeling through the pockets in his coat. I don't know why I did it. I don't know. But he saw –"

The flood stopped, and she looked ashamed.

Jack's face had set; she must have been responding to that. He tried to relax it a little, make it friendlier, which wasn't very hard for him to do. "Come on, sweetheart, you can tell me. You've gotten this far. What did he see?"

A brief expression – so brief his brain didn't have time to identify it – passed over her features, but then she was pitiful and vulnerable again. "I took it from him – the letter. I have no idea what it's about. I just took it because it looked important. And…" She leaned back exhausted in her chair.

Jack laid the letter on the table, flattening out the creases as his eyes glanced over it again.

_The Heart_.

His mouth curled into a smile again. _Beckett, I've bested you this time. You thought I had no chance, didn't you? You should be more careful with things like this._ He didn't know where Beckett had hidden Jones's heart, but he knew that it existed, and that was a start.

And he knew that Beckett didn't have it. That was all that mattered to him.

_Hidden_.

He glanced up at Helen, who had turned a pale shade of green. "Was there a map with this? Was there anything else that Norrington had on him that you took?"

She shook her head.

He turned his attention back to the paper. It was unusually large for such a small message, and on high-quality parchment. D_amn Beckett; always had to show off._ It folded easily on darkened creases. He laid it equidistant between his two flattened palms. "Why did you hide this?"

The green was replaced with red. Her chin jutted and her eyebrows lowered, and her cheeks flushed a garish pink. "I hardly even know you. I don't know you. We only met a few weeks ago, maybe not even that long. Why should I give you anything?"

"You owe me your life."

He thought the discussion was closed and was sitting back triumphantly in his chair, when Helen said very quietly, "I didn't ask you to."

"What was that?" he asked slowly, dangerously.

She met his eyes. "I didn't ask you to save my life."

"You would rather have had me let you _die_?"

"I don't appreciate being indebted to anyone. I hate it when people use guilt to their own advantage. As if knowing that you saved an innocent's life isn't enough."

"It isn't, not for me." She looked away. "We've lived very different lives, missy. Maybe the satisfaction of being a good person, doing a good deed, is enough for you to live on, but I have learned that that just gets you killed. You can't live off of satisfaction. You live off of food, money."

There was a knock at the door, and Jack could see the outline of one of his crew in the clouded glass windows. They had probably all been listening in this whole time.

"What is it?" Jack said.

"Captain, we were wondering if you would please give us the bearing."

Jack muttered, "Damn it, I've given them the bearing already. This must be the fourth time they've asked in the past few hours." He stood with exaggerated effort, as if his whole crew was watching him, so they could see how much they had inconvenienced him. And they would have all seen, crowded around the door as they were, if it weren't for the glass. "Don't touch anything, don't move, don't breathe," Jack said to Helen as he walked out the door.

The bright sunlight was quickly cut short again as the door closed behind him. The windows in his cabin were all grimy on both the inside and the outside, so that the light that entered was all pale and darkened by the almost opaque panes.

Helen reached down to the hem of her dress as soon as she was certain that he was walking up to the forecastle. The knife was still hidden there, almost falling out after so much activity. She pulled it out and carefully hid it beneath the folds in her dress and under her hands. She thought of getting the gun from his desk, but decided that the knife would be better, quieter. If she shot him, the whole crew would be alerted. Knives were quieter.

She tried to ignore the constant warning in the back of her mind, like a lighthouse signaling the shallow shoals. The middle of the ocean was no place to kill a Captain, especially a Captain so well-liked by his crew.

_I will only use it if I have to_.

Jack walked in a second later, just as agitated. She looked down quickly to make sure he couldn't see a glint of cold metal peeking through her weak fingers.

"I swear, one day I'm going to cut off their rum. Let it run dry. See if they are such idiots without the rum in their heads." He stopped in front of her and reached over to grab the letter, waving it in front of her face. "No more secrets. Promise?"

The pads of her fingers brushed against the blade of the knife in her lap. A sudden jerk of the ship and the metal cut into her skin. She winced visibly, but didn't say a word.

Jack noticed. He leaned against the table in front of her and reached down. Taking her wrist gently in his fingers, he turned it over. A bright line of blood oozed and grew on her finger, some of it dripping onto the blade. He took the knife. "No more secrets."

He didn't trust her after that. When before she would have walked the decks alone, he made sure there was always a crew member with her, either as an escort or as a sort of spy, following her from a distance but always making sure she behaved. He employed all the eyes on the ship.

The knife he had found her with still rested on his desk, holding down one of the corners of the map he was examining. By his right hand, just off the edge of the map, was the letter from Beckett to Norrington.

He pushed aside the map in disgust. His initial pleasure at finally catching wind of the Heart's existence, however cryptic, was quickly wearing off as the grating reality of his situation settled in. This was no lead. Sure, he knew that it still existed, but he could have just as easily jumped into the sea and figured that out for himself as Davy Jones's little sea monsters came after him. At least he hoped the Kraken was gone.

And anyway, he had no idea how old the letter might be. Beckett could have changed its position, so maybe now he had it with him at all times.

Maybe he lied to Norrington, maybe he wanted the Heart for himself and didn't want Norrington in on the deal.

He produced a bottle of rum from one of the drawers to his left and drank the last few mouthfuls. "Oh Norrington, old boy. Poor man."

Though they had been enemies – and would continue to be well in the afterlife – being shot by a weak girl was no way to die. The empathy that always comes after an untimely death was familiar to Jack.

_He was just doing his job, after all._

He rested his head on his arms, suddenly feeling exhausted. It had been a busy day, what with discovering treachery on his own ship and learning about Norrington. His thoughts wandered back over the events of the past few hours, lingering longest on the gun still in the drawer next to him. He pulled it out and set it in front of him.

_Fucking little bitch, little cunt, uppity little cat –_

He felt the weight of the gun in his hand, a comfortable, familiar feeling. Without it, his hand felt oddly light, so it was always a bit comforting just holding it, his security blanket. He waved it around, aiming at imaginary enemies. Helen's head appeared often in his mind's eye and he shot her just like the rest of them.

_Bit–_

The barrel of the gun connected with the neck of a half-full bottle of rum, sending the dark drink of the gods spattering and infusing itself in all the papers on his desk.

"Damn it!" He jumped up and grabbed a bundle of soggy papers, taking them over closer to his lamp. At the top of the pile was the letter.

Jack unfolded it quickly and waved the worst part of the stain over the open mouth of the candle, careful to keep it far enough away that the heat wouldn't make it catch fire spontaneously. "Damn it." He rested his face in one hand as he kept the soaking paper moving over the flame. After some time, he could feel it had lightened, the far edge of it already dry and curling in the heat. He made to switch around the paper to get the other side dry, when something made him stop and stare.

Thin, pale lines had appeared on the parchment, lacing across and through the neatly scrawled message, falling off the edges. His hand convulsively let go of the corner, but caught it before it could ignite in the candle flame.

Pushing aside the untidy piles of books and maps, he pressed the letter flat. The lines seemed to be appearing and darkening before his eyes. And in the dim light, he could make out a name: Jamaica.

It was a map.


	5. Five

**Disclaimer**: I keep forgetting to add this. I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: I'm sort of feeling my way blindly about, after such a long break between chapters. If you notice any inconsistencies with my earlier chapters, let me know. And constructive criticism is always welcome (I'm so bad at editing myself – after it's done I just want to get it out there, not have to read it again!). Enjoy, I hope.

**Chapter Five**

Helen stood at the low, filthy counter in the galley. Strewn across the cutting block she was working over were piles of moldy potato peelings. She made sure to cut deep into the potatoes, cut out the burrowing roots of mold.

Behind her, Gibbs walked around the small room, opening cabinets. "The Captain seems pretty pleased with himself," he said, squatting in front of a low cabinet and looking inside. He brought out a bag of hardtack.

"Mm."

"I wonder what he's up to." Gibbs laid the bag out on the counter and took out a square of the bread. He sniffed it first, and when it didn't smell suspicious, he put a corner of it between his teeth and bit down. It didn't break. "This is as hard as a holystone. No, harder even." He bit it again and held a hand against his aching teeth. "Tastes just about as bad as one, too."

Helen looked over her shoulder, but said nothing. Always with the talking. She never got any peace on the ship, not even when she was sleeping; Jack made her sleep down below with the men, tucked away in a makeshift corner. But still she heard the snoring and the laughing and the joking and the bloody _talking_. With the back of her hand, she rubbed the weariness out of her eyes.

"You wouldn't happen to know, would you?"

She said tiredly, "Know what?"

"About Jack."

She shrugged. Her knife was dull – no doubt also Jack's idea – and it was hard to cut through the skin. She only ripped it.

Gibbs looked over her shoulder. "When will dinner be ready?"

"Soon enough. They still have to cook."

He stood back and scuffed his boots on the floor. "I haven't had a real meal in ages – since we last docked? When was that?" He started toward the hallway. "Well, anyway, men just aren't made for this domestic stuff, you know. Our last cook made horrible food. I guess it's a woman's place after all."

Helen glared at him. "Do you want dinner or not?"

He stepped into the hallway and shut the door after him.

When the potatoes were satisfactorily clean and free of mold, she set a pot of water on the stove to start boiling. Jack wouldn't be happy, Gibbs leaving her alone like this in a room full of sharp knives and other dangerous things.

Then again, recently he seemed to be walking around about five feet above the deck, hardly noticing anyone except in passing.

Anyway, she was content to wait for now. They would have to dock soon. Food was getting low.

She had the potatoes boiling in the pot when the door to the hallway opened. She looked over, expecting to see Gibbs or another one of the crew. Lo and behold, Jack stood in the doorway, the Captain himself, in the flesh.

Helen glared at him, but he didn't notice her. He walked over to one of the overhead cabinets and pushed aside the rotting packages of unidentifiable food and brought out a half-full flask of rum. He shook it so the liquid sloshed up the sides of the bottle, a hollow swishing sound, and looked confused.

That makes sense, she thought to herself. He's been drinking; of course he'd seem more out of it than usual. After only a few weeks, not even a month, she already had a sense for his 'usual'

He downed the rest of the bottle and leaned against the counter. His eyes focused and he noticed her for the first time, watching him over her shoulder. "Is this all that's left?" he said, waving the bottle in front of him. "Have you been into my stash?"

She turned back to the stove and hunched over her boiling pot. The steam fanned her face and condensed on her forehead. "How would I know what you've done with your alcohol?"

Jack said nothing, and she heard the cabinets being opened and closed again. And then it went silent behind her. She wondered if he had somehow walked out without her hearing, because she didn't even hear the slightest sound of life in the room. She had to restrain herself from turning around to scan the room, in case he was standing behind her, waiting for her to look at him.

The silence grew unnerving.

His hand closed on her shoulder, and she actually jumped. But she didn't look around. He leaned to look over her shoulder, much closer than Gibbs had been. She edged out from beneath his hand. "What's this?"

She tried pushing him away with her elbow.

He seemed to take a certain delight in what he saw. "What's this? What's this? So I've finally broken you, and now you're domesticated? You're actually going to make yourself useful, then?"

"You're not getting any dinner," she said. She took the pot in her hands, using her dress to make sure she didn't burn her hands. At the water basin, she carefully poured out the steaming and still-bubbling water. It sizzled as it hit the cold basin.

He didn't follow her, but turned off the stove. "Of course I'm getting some; I'm Captain."

"Go right ahead and beg the others for some, but you're not getting anything from me."

"I know."

Her hands slipped and the pot clanged noisily into the water basin, and she spun around to face him. Her eyes were wide and just a little crazed above her bright red cheeks. She tried to form words, curses, insults with her lips, but nothing came out.

Jack held up his hands, still leaning casually against the cooling stove. "Sorry, love. You walked into that one," he said, grinning at his own cleverness.

Helen turned back to the pot and grabbed a pile of tin plates from a cabinet overhead. She laid them out on the counter in straight rows and ladled a small mountain of soft potatoes onto each plate. Without turning to look at him, she said, "Go tell the men that dinner is ready."

"Why don't you do it?"

"Because _I'm_ the one that made it. _I'm_ the one that has to serve it. Quick, before it gets cold."

After Jack walked sulkily back up to the main deck, men started filtering in, each grabbing a plate before filing back out of the room. They were acting more civilized that she'd ever seen them act, but she assumed it was all for her benefit.

Jack finally filed in just as she handed the last plate with the last potatoes to one of the crew members. Jack looked at her expectantly. Helen scrubbed the sides of the pot, using the water from the boiled potatoes.

"Where's mine?"

"I must have miscounted." She picked up the pot and took it over to cabinets, dried it, and put it back on its shelf. "We don't have enough. You'll have to put together your own dinner." She dried her hands on a dirty rag. "Don't look at me like that – what did you do before you had a slave to cook for you?"

He watched her sulkily. "Just make me my dinner, b–" He cut himself off, thinking better about his wording.

Helen pushed the bag of hardtack closer to him. "Help yourself." She took two small, solid squares herself and walked dignifiedly up the steps. When he was sleeping, she would go down and make dinner for herself. She knew that if she did it now, he would hover over her like an accusing child, with those staring, guilting eyes.

Darkness was just beginning to fall. The sun lit up a low cloud bank in the distant west, and the sky to the east was already a darkening purple. She could see a star – or maybe a planet – at the horizon. She sat on the short stairway that lead up to the quarterdeck and stared out at the sunset. "Red sky at night, sailor's delight," she said to herself. And it certainly was a red sunset.

She had one corner of the salty – but otherwise flavorless – hardtack in her mouth, trying to moisten it enough so that she could safely bite it, when she saw Jack swaggering over to her in the falling darkness. Helen stood up and walked up the rest of the stairs, pretending to ignore him. The moment he set foot on the raised deck though, she walked down the stairs on the other side of the ship.

"Oi!"

She stopped.

He caught up with her and grabbed lightly onto her arm. "Don't just walk away from me like that," he said, directing her towards his cabin. "You're a guest on my ship, after all, and since you aren't _paying_ me for any of the comforts I provide, per se, there are lots of worse things I could be doing to you right about now. Do you want to encourage me?"

He lit the lanterns inside his quarters, and Helen sat heavily in a chair. "What is it now? Why did you bring me in here? I was trying to eat my dinner."

He sat across from her. "My thoughts exactly." He smiled, and his gold teeth glinted in the lamplight. "I thought you might benefit from some company. After all, I know _I_ couldn't go and eat with the rest of the crew, what with their _real_ food, and all. I figured you must be in the same predicament as me. I just wanted to keep you company." He enunciated every word very carefully, especially _predicament_, pronouncing ever single syllable. He was enjoying this.

She made a face at him.

He opened a drawer in his desk. "Now then –" He pulled out a pistol and set the hardtack out on the table in front of him.

"What are you doing?" She caught herself before she ran across the room again at the sight of his pistol. He didn't have her in mind this time. "You realize that if you shoot it, it won't get you anywhere, don't you? You'll just have shards of hardtack scattered about the room. Gunpowder-covered hardtack. Maybe with some of it embedded in your neck."

"I'm not that stupid." He grinned. Positioning the bread carefully in the center of his desk, he raised his pistol and brought it down hard in the center of the square of bread. Nothing happened, except for the intact hardtack skittering across the desk and onto the floor.

"You're never going to break it like that," Helen said, the nervousness audible in her voice. "And I hope that gun isn't loaded."

Jack hit the hardtack again. Twice more. The sixth time, there was a sharp splitting noise, and when they both leaned forward to look at it, there was an inch long crack in the surface of the bread. Jack took it in his hands, and with a bit of effort, broke it in two. "Want me to do yours?"

Helen shook her head and stuck the corner back into her mouth again.

Jack tried biting into it with little success. But then he smiled. "I have just the thing." From another drawer, he pulled out a bottle of rum and then two dusty glasses. He poured a bit into each glass and cheerfully dipped one half of his hardtack into the mud-colored liquid, letting it soak. He pushed the other glass over to her.

After a moment's hesitation, Helen took the glass. But her hardtack wouldn't fit inside – it was too wide. She could _hear_ Jack's smirk. Avoiding looking at him, she tipped the glass and soaked the corner she had been trying to soften.

"Wouldn't it have been much easier for you to have just cooked me a few potatoes?"

Helen didn't answer.

His chair legs scraped against the wood and he rested his feet on the table, always with one hand carefully holding his hardtack. "You know, there is a reason I brought you in here. But if you're just going to sulk, I don't know if I want to tell you."

She looked up at him under lowered brows and suddenly saw him clearer than she ever had during these few weeks aboard ship. He was a pirate. Various weapons lay around his room, at the ready. Her mind flitted back to stories her sister Bab used to tell her about pirates, how they rape women and kill them. _They never leave any survivors_, Bab's voice whispered in her ear.

And suddenly, this bumbling captain was no longer just a fool. He was a wolf, the wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood. Except there was no happy ending in sight. She had read the actual story herself when she was just a little girl, realized that her mother and sister and father had been lying to her when they gave it a happy ending. It was in an old battered copy of Perrault's _The Tales of Mother Goose_, and she had seen that Little Red Riding Hood didn't escape her fate.

No happy ending.

"Aren't you even curious?" He sounded a bit disappointed, having taken her silence as more sulking.

Helen stood abruptly. "I should go."

He stood across from her. "Where? This ship is only so large, love."

"I – don't know." She started for the door, but he jumped around the table and stopped her.

"Wait! Look!" Holding her with one hand and rifling through his coat with the other, he quickly brought out the note he had taken from her at least a week earlier.

She stepped back. "What about it? Do you intend to lecture me about keeping secrets again or something?"

"No, _look_!"

Helen took the letter hesitantly and stared down at it. She would have walked out, had it not been for the look of superior knowledge on his face, the same glee a five-year-old gets when someone tells him a secret that he can go blab to all his friends and enemies.

He grabbed her wrist and directed it close to the lantern, where heat radiated from the glass. She tried to jerk it away. "I don't know if this is a good idea. This paper is very dry."

He shook his head. "Wait. _Look_."

She did. And just when she started really worrying that the paper would catch on fire, thin, dark lines seemed to seep out of the fibers of the paper. "What on–?"

"Holy shit, right?" he said, as if he had just told a particularly good story and was now marveling in his own wittiness.

Her moth hung half open. "What is it?"

He directed her over to his desk and brought a lantern closer to them. She could clearly see the names of various islands in the Caribbean, their shorelines, some major ports. She traced a few errant wavy lines with her finger. She had no idea what they were or if they lead anywhere. One bumped against an island and then continued on its way.

Jack was standing over her, but she didn't notice him now. "What is it, you ask? This, sweetheart, is a map to Freedom."


	6. Six

**Disclaimer**: I keep forgetting to add this. I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: I'd like to take the time to thank everyone who has expressed interest in this little project of mine, especially to those of you who have commented. It's much appreciated. (: The story took a turn out of my hands, so we'll see where this goes. (5/1/07) Problems fixed, nothing major.

**Chapter Six**

Lord Cutler Beckett sat tall and stiff in the wooden chair next to the bed, his eyes focused vacantly and his lips pressed in a thin line. For the past few hours, he had been watching the patch of sunlight from the open window work its way from the middle of the floor to a few inches up the far wall. His lower back felt as though someone had stuck pins into his spine and proceeded to pound the pins further in the bone with the butt of a gun. He shifted uncomfortably to make the blood flow again to his tingling right leg and, finally, gave in and took off his hat to fan himself.

Movement from the bed drew his attention away from the heat and his throbbing back. "Are you awake?" His bad temper urged him to add an indignant _Finally?_ to the end of his question, but he decided to hold his tongue – if the man survived, Beckett would have plenty of chances later on to show his displeasure.

The only answer he received was a delayed groan, but the man's eyes were open – well, Beckett could see one eye open and watching beneath the gauze holding together his head.

He scowled. He was in a bad mood, and the pain in his back convinced him to be reckless. "We're losing valuable time, you realize, and all because you had to go and get shot. With that girl in possession of the letter, who knows who will get a hold of it."

The injured man lay silent and still, eyes fixed on the ceiling above. Then, very slowly, he moved his arms to push himself up. The bleached-white sheets, stained here and there with blood and sweat, fell from his chest to reveal the dirty linen that was wrapped around his festering wound. With his free hand, he pulled away the bandages from his head, so that Beckett could see the dark-purple bruises that covered the left half of his face. "You don't think I realize that?" His voice was scratchy and thin, unused. "You don't think that has been eating at me for all these long weeks as I am _forced_ to lie in this damned bed? You don't think that has been on my mind _every single waking moment_?" Spent, his arm trembled under his weight, and he fell back to his bed with a painful grunt.

Beckett stood over him, radiating his annoyance. "Now is no time for self-pity, Norrington."

Norrington slowly opened his eye – the bruised one was swollen shut – and glared. The muscles in his jaw stood out in sharp relief to his emaciated face. "You aren't the one who was shot, Beckett. How would you know whether its time for self-pity or not? How could you _possibly_ know?"

Beckett replaced his hat on his head and considered leaving Norrington there fuming. But – no, he had to have the last word. "I do know that every second we waste on land, we risk the map entering the hands of someone very undesirable."

Norrington's eye narrowed. Beckett turned and walked slowly toward the door with his hands clasped behind his back. He was waiting, waiting, waiting–

"Do you know something, Beckett? What aren't you telling me?"

–And there it was. He stopped and smiled to himself, before composing his face and turning back to the injured man watching him with suspicion. "Word has gotten back to me – its source isn't important – that the girl who assaulted you has been seen with someone very undesirable indeed."

"Explain yourself."

"If we're going to get rude, Norrington, I might as well just leave."

Norrington sat up quickly and bit back his cry of pain. "No! Please, don't. Tell me what you mean. Please."

"I should say that you know already, from the way the vein on your temple is throbbing."

Norrington stared at him for a long time, eye narrowed, then suddenly wide. His mouth gaped, and the color alternately paled and burned in his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead beneath his stringy brown hair. He looked to Beckett as though he were about to burst an artery – highly possible in his weakened state. He sank back to his pillow as Beckett returned to the bedside chair.

"No" was all that Norrington could say.

"Yes. To my knowledge, she was saved from her imprisonment by the pirate when he overtook the merchant ship. The fool, if only he knew what danger he put himself in."

Norrington turned to him suddenly. "We have to find It. The Heart. We have to hide It or else, or else – if Sparrow finds It, we're all doomed. Dead!" He placed a hand gently over his bruised and swollen eye, groaning pitifully.

"Sparrow isn't clever enough to discover the map," Beckett said. "Besides, it wouldn't do him much good – I had the good sense to move It as soon as I gave you your map."

Pause. "What?" His voice was low and angry.

"I moved the Heart." Beckett was suddenly glad he had stayed. Norrington's reaction was priceless and made up for his aching back and numb legs.

His voice was flat. "You _moved_ it."

Beckett pulled an envelope out of his coat and took the thick parchment letter out. It appeared to be a message from one of his agents, covered in thin, neat writing, but when he held it over the open mouth of the candle lamp, dark lines bled out of the paper. He held out the paper under the light and peered down at it.

Desperately, Norrington said, "Where did you move it?" But his tone was really saying _Why did you move it?_

Beckett deliberately folded the map and slid it back into its envelope. "That is not what is important. When will you be able to sail?"

In response, Norrington pushed up on one elbow, his hand pressing firmly against the slowly healing hole in his chest. His pale legs slid from beneath the sheets and rested lightly on the cold wood floor. Beckett watched on with poorly concealed amusement. Norrington was only able to stand by leaning heavily against the wall, and even then he slid down a few inches before his legs were able to fight gravity. "When will the ship be ready?"

Beckett smiled. "It's been waiting in port."

------

Norrington clenched his jaw to force down the nausea that surged with every cresting wave. He felt awful; apparently after a few months of bed rest, his body forgot the sea. He felt clammy and dizzy, like a green sailor, and he was ashamed of it. At least he was able to sit, although he felt useless on deck, just watching and not pacing. And he would have been pacing, if it weren't for his physician who had _insisted_ on being taken along. The man was now sitting a few feet away, trying in vain to hold down the pages of one of his many aging medical books against the wind.

But Norrington couldn't be bothered. Adrenaline flooded through his veins and made his heart race every time he thought he saw a ship on the distant horizon. He might be completely unable to even stand up without feeling the sharp pain in his chest and without getting winded after only a few moments of halting steps, but he was eager to return to battle. His blood called for it.

Just think: Jack Sparrow, at his mercy.

And think: the girl, the girl who almost killed him, the girl who _shamed_ him, who took him by surprise, at his mercy.

Norrington smiled and didn't notice that he had fallen asleep and was dreaming until he felt a light touch on his shoulder. "You're tired." The physician hovered off to Norrington's right and behind him, just out of his field of view.

He brushed the man away. "I'm fine, I'm fine." He wanted to go back to sleep, of course – he was having a wonderful dream about seeing Sparrow at the other end of his smoking pistol – but that would be admitting defeat. He pushed the urge away, unwilling to take a nap like a child. "I'm fine, go away," he repeated.

But the man wouldn't listen to him. He had a strong arm around Norrington's back and had already secured Norrington's right arm over his broad shoulders before he could protest. "You don't have to sleep," he said, as he helped Norrington down the stairs to the waist of the ship. "You can read, think, any number of things. Let's just get you out of the sun."

"I'm the Admiral of the Royal Navy," he said as they walked through the doors to the Captain's Quarters. Beckett, sitting at the large wooden desk and poring over aged nautical maps, looked up as they entered, but didn't say a word. "I'm the bloody Admiral. I don't need anyone telling me what to do." But he sat on the edge of the bed without a fight and even slumped weakly into the pillows propped up on the headboard.

The bullet wound twinged and something grated or ripped or snapped. Norrington hissed expressively.

"Don't move." The physician unbuttoned Norrington's clean, neatly tucked shirt and pulled aside the bandages. A frown passed over his face, replaced by the practiced calm of a doctor who has seen many worse cases. "I don't like this," he said hesitantly.

A chair scraped against the floor, and Beckett appeared over the man's shoulder, looking down at Norrington's chest in interest.

"What do you mean? You don't like what?" He searched their eyes, and everything grew a bit darker around the corner of his vision as his pulse accelerated even faster than before.

The physician pulled away more bandages to get a better look at the wound. He pressed a piece of white cloth against it, the pressure spreading out in little knife pricks of pain all the way to the back of Norrington's knees, and held the cloth in front of him. Norrington could see a few little splotches of blood on the other side of the layers of cloth. "It should have healed more than this by now." He was speaking more to himself than anyone else.

Norrington looked down at the wound. It was dark red in the center, and tiny bubbles of blood oozed out around the sides of a poorly formed scab. The skin around it was changing color, to a whitish grey color, to a sickly yellow, to a deep purple. He felt queasy and it wasn't just because of the ship.

The physician pulled his case of supplies from the bottom shelf of a bookcase in the corner, and brought over to the table next to the Captain's bed. He didn't open it right away, but stood silently staring at the rotting wound. "No, no." His voice trailed off, and he busied himself by looking for something in his back. "No."

He couldn't seem to find what he was looking for. Then he asked Beckett, "Have you any alcohol? Any kind would work."

Beckett angled a glance down at Norrington, who was still staring at the physician in horror. "I think there's some in the cabinet. To the right of the desk. Bottom door," he said softly.

It was a bottle of cognac, left over from a visit to mainland Europe. Beckett watched regretfully, disappointed that so fine a drink would be used for such a common purpose, but he didn't move to stop him.

The doctor broke the seal and pulled out the cork. He picked up the bloodied piece of cloth and hesitated. "Get me a glass," he said. Beckett handed him one from above one bookcase, and the doctor poured a whole glassful of the dark liquid. A moment of hesitation, as he looked deep into the cup, then he offered it to Norrington. "To dull some of the sting," he said.

Norrington drank the cognac gratefully. When the fuzziness just began to appear at the unseen edges of his conscious, he settled back down and braced himself.

"This will help cleanse the wound. Something is making it decay; this will take care of part of that." The physician licked his lips nervously. "But it will hurt. It could be much worse, and if we do nothing, it _will_ get much worse."

Norrington nodded once and forced his eyes closed. He heard the hollow swishing sound of a bottle being upended, and then he felt the doctor lean over him and hesitate. There was a pressure on his wound again, a strange tingling sensation on the surface, and then–


	7. Seven

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: I always feel obligated to write these, but I never have much to say. Read, enjoy, review.

**Chapter Seven**

Helen swung the ax down and let it rest imbedded in the wedge of a tree trunk that she had been using to steady the logs of wood she was splitting. She wiped away the sweat from her forehead and stretched her arms to try to get the soreness out of them. She wasn't really sure how she had been volunteered to do this job, but she felt with a vague sense of annoyance that she had volunteered herself. At least the stove and ovens were off, so that the heat in the room was only from herself and from the closeness.

The door creaked open. "Ah ha. Gibbs said you were down here, and I didn't believe him." Jack's eyes rested for a moment on the pile of split firewood on the floor, then turned to Helen's red and dirty face. "I had to see this for myself: the Lady Helen decides that physical labor is not beneath her."

Helen shrugged and tugged the ax out of the wood in a quick motion. "This was one of my jobs at home." She sought out a log that needed splitting. "It's no big deal, really."

Jack saw the log before she did and picked it up when she reached for it.

He made no move to hand it to her. "May I have my log, please?" she said, her voice flat and annoyed. He seemed to be thinking. But when she made to grab it, he quickly pulled it out of her range and held it behind his back.

"Here," he said, holding out his empty hand. She glared at him. "Your ax, missy; I need your ax. You go sit down before you faint or rupture an artery or something." He squinted at her. "You're really red, you know."

Helen blushed and set her face in a sulking frown. Jack merely brushed by her and grabbed the ax on the way to the cutting block. He looked over his shoulder at her when he had the log balanced on the tree trunk. "_Sit_."

Helen's face remained in a stubborn sulk, but she sat gratefully. Her arms felt like jelly after at least an hour of constant chopping. She would never admit it, though, least of all to Jack.

Jack swung the ax down into the dead center of the log, and it split cleanly in two. She could already tell that he would be more efficient at it than she was, if he could split one with one swing.

He picked the next log up. "You say you did this at home?"

She nodded. "Yes."

Before cutting the next log, he looked back at her. "Why? I would have thought that you came from a family with enough money for at least a few servants, the way you act. Any brothers, at least, to do the work?"

Helen hesitated. She quickly tried to think of all the possible consequences and came up with none. She would just have to be careful. "We lived in the country. In the Colonies. Father always complained about some sort of family curse: he had all girls, no boys. My sisters and I had to take up the slack."

_Thuck_. Two halves of wood fell to the floor.

Jack said nothing, and Helen wondered if his question had been meant to be rhetorical. But she was desperate to talk, and something made her continue, even if he wasn't listening. She hadn't thought about her family for a long time. She rested her back against the counter behind her. "I guess," she began hesitantly, as Jack split the next log. "I guess that after mother died, that was what really convinced father."

She could still remember the scent in that room. Hot, sticky, blood, sweat, death. Her mother was pale, her lips pale and bloodless. Father grasped desperately at her hands and tried to wake her. There was no doctor; they couldn't afford one. Bab had tried to keep her out, but Helen had seen it: a tiny baby, still and bloody on the blankets. Its head was purple and deformed, and its eyes bulged and stared at the ceiling. And – it was a boy. _The family curse_.

Helen rocked forward and wrapped her hands around her stomach. Jack finished splitting the rest of the logs in silence and sat down next to her. Once he caught his breath, he patted her shoulder gently with his sweaty hand. She peeked over at him; his face was serious.

"Don't give me that look."

"What look?" His hand rested warmly on the back of her neck, and the extra heat made her angrier.

"Like you pity me," she spat out. "I've had enough people pity me in my lifetime."

"Well, then one more person wouldn't make much of a difference, right?" He grinned at her. Helen struggled up, but his hands on her shoulders kept her on the floor. "Come now, darling. I don't pity you. Does that make you feel better?"

Helen curled forward, her back towards him, and hugged her knees, silent. In a quick and decisive gesture, Jack pulled her over and pushed back on her forehead so that she had to look up at him. "Hmm?"

She shrugged out of his grasp. Scooting a couple of inches down the length of the counter, she crumpled against the wall, her back still towards Jack. But she didn't leave.

A couple of logs scattered as Jack thrust out his legs in front of him. "So, your mother died," he said. So he had been listening. "And your father?"

Helen said very quietly, "Left us." His room empty of its books and trinkets from his limited travels. Those odds and ends from other colonies and even some things from England were so exotic to Helen as a child, her only reminder that the world was larger than just the small family farm. "He hated us – for being girls and being alive while our brother never even lived."

Jack was silent.

"But I got out of there as soon as I could."

The door banged open. "Jack!" Marty skidded into view, followed by the ever-serene Cotton. "We've spotted land."

Jack stood abruptly. "_The_ land?"

"Well, we're not sure if it's _the_ land, that's why we came to get you. It might just be _some_ land, but that would be helpful, too, wouldn't it? If we could figure out more where we are?"

"It may be hard to determine whether it's _the_ land or _some_ land, though. It's dark after all. And I haven't been able to find _the_ land on any of my nautical charts. It could very well be that it's _some_ land, but _some_ land that is very unhelpful."

Helen had sat up and was watching the two men as they spoke nonsense.

Jack pulled the letter out of his coat and followed Marty upstairs. Cotton stayed behind and stared at her in that unnervingly quiet way of his. Then he smiled, pointed to the piles of wood and nodded. The parrot on his shoulder squawked out a string of colorful swear words; no doubt one of the crew had gotten a hold of it. He waved at the parrot, and it hopped around on his shoulder, flustered. Cotton nodded once at her and walked back up the stairs.

Helen tried to hear what Jack and Marty were doing on deck. They must be looking for the treasure, whatever the treasure was. The Heart. She imagined that it was probably some sort of code word for something very grand that Jack needed very badly, or maybe even just a heart of pure gold or diamonds, or something equally tempting to money-hungry pirates.

She trailed up the stairs, her whole body tired after splitting logs. Every step was another mountain to climb. By the time she reached the top of the stairs up to the helm, Jack had already taken up post at the wheel and was staring serenely out into the darkening sea.

"We'll make landfall just after dark, if the wind holds," he said to her cheerfully as she dragged herself toward him.

"Landfall for what?"

He gave her a look that questioned her sanity. "For the Heart, obviously," he said, as though it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world, and Helen was a fool for not thinking of it first in the first place.

Helen rested against the side of the wheel, staying out of the way of the prongs. "Are you ever going to tell me what is meant by 'the Heart'? I've been waiting patiently for someone to fill me in, because I've noticed that no one on the crew looks at you as though you're crazy when you go on and on about this heart. They must all know. Why am I the only one that doesn't?"

But he waved her away. "You'll find out soon enough, if you stop complaining. You might know tonight. Take a nap, sleep off your bad temper." He pushed on her shoulder gently to get her going.

She wasn't quite sure how she made it down below decks to her hammock off in its corner, but she did, and she fell asleep quickly. She didn't wake up as the crew worked noisily above her, or when some trickled in to catch some sleep as well. She only woke up at the sudden pounding of feet on the deck above her and the loud yelling that rose into a chorus of one voice. _Land!_

The anchor dropped into the water, its large rope finally twanging taut when the heavy iron fingers caught on some rock below. The ship swung about and rested still.

Helen scrambled out of her hammock and ran up the stairs to the deck. There were men in the masts, furling the sails, illuminated only by the half-moon and the lanterns on the deck below and hanging up around the sailors like so many small fireflies. Others were preparing the boats, attaching them to the pulleys and setting out the oars.

Jack stood at the helm, surveying it all. As the men climbed down from the masts above, Jack shouted, "We rest here until morning. Watches are as before." There was silence on the deck. Jack grinned and added, "Tomorrow all the danger disappears for us."

Then men cheered and quickly flooded down to their hammocks to rest before their search the next day. The current watch stayed on deck. One of the men brought out a deck of homemade cards, and the others brought boxes and logs and anything else they could find to use as tables and stools.

Jack saw Helen before he walked into his cabin. "I thought I told you to get some sleep."

Helen rubbed her neck. "I did," she said. "Where are we?"

"Who the hell knows?" Jack said, grinning. "Somewhere not on any map, but somewhere in the Caribbean." He turned and the door swung shut behind him.


	8. Eight

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Another chapter and again, not much to say. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for your reviews, past and (hopefully) future.

**Chapter Eight**

The island was bigger than Jack had expected and hoped.

"For not even meriting a mark on the map," he grumbled, standing in front of his wide window at first light, "it certainly is large." He pulled on his coat against the brief morning chill and made his way to the galley. Most of the crew was still asleep – even those who were supposed to be keeping watch – and the sun had just begun to peek its blazing head over the horizon.

He paused over one of the sleeping watchmen, staring down at him impatiently. Decisively, he disappeared below deck and appeared a few moments later carrying a large pan in one hand, a metal spoon in the other. Smiling to himself, he stood above the nearest sleeping sailor.

The man twitched at the first crash of metal against metal and curled on his side, covering his ears. When the noise didn't stop, he frantically tried to crawl away from it, still half-asleep, and ran head first into a heavy barrel.

Jack was laughing maniacally, and he continued banging on the pot until everyone on the crew slowly woke up and shuffled across the deck to form a circle around him. Their eyes were heavy and resentful, and each and every one of them gritted their teeth against the jarring noise, forcing back the urge to mutiny and beat Jack senseless.

When he was fairly certain that everyone was awake, he let the pot and spoon rest at his sides. Blissful silence followed.

"Now, then," he said. "Since you're all awake, I suppose we might as well get to work, right?"

Vacant stares.

"Er, ha ha. Right, then." He scanned over the heads in the crowd, desperately trying to dispel the feeling that the circle was slowly, menacingly, closing in on him. "Gibbs!"

Gibbs grunted from the back of the crowd, and the men stepped aside as he forced his way through. He looked to be nursing a persistent hangover, and he glared none too fondly at the pot in Jack's hand. "There will be no more – no more of _that_, I hope?" he asked, voice low and ragged.

Jack ignored him. "I need you to split the crew into two. One will come with me, to the island. The other stays here to watch the _Pearl_. Can you do that?"

"Aye, Captain." He grumbled low under his breath – something about curses and dull knives and burnt food – but obediently turned to the silent men and started shouting orders.

Confident that Gibbs had the situation under control, Jack moved toward his cabin. One quick look back over the now distinct groups of men, and he saw Helen standing at the edge of one of the crowds, watching. The group she had attached herself to, the island group, began to move to prepare the boats, and she followed.

Jack whistled sharp and clear. Most of the men ignored him in stubborn annoyance as a protest of his rude wake up call that morning, but Helen stopped and looked at him. He motioned for her.

Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest before she had even reached him. "What is it?"

Jack gave her a you-know-exactly-what-_it­_-is look. "I know how eager you are to help out, love, but you'll be staying on ship today."

Her arms dropped to her sides, and she took a small step towards him, outraged. "I'm going–"

"No," he interrupted loudly. She stopped and stared at him sullenly. "No, you see, this is work we're going to be doing today." He held up a hand to stop the protest already forming on her lips. "No place for a lady, such as yourself. You might faint, wearing that dress of yours."

"If that's the only problem, lend me some breeches and a shirt, and then I can come."

He closed his eyes a moment. "There's no negotiation. You'll be staying here." He patted her shoulder gently and walked into his cabin. She followed, just as he had expected she would. As he sorted through the clutter on his desk, he said, "Why do you want to come so much, anyways?"

She moved closer and held out a paper. Jack stopped his search, looked at her hand. She pressed it to his chest, and he took it. "I never get to do anything interesting," she said, not quite meeting his stare.

Jack looked down at the folded paper. The lines of the map cut through the pale cream in blunt, black lines, but this paper was crisper and the rum stains were gone. Most importantly, the lines showed, even though they were far away from any open flame. He smiled, a little chagrined. "I was wondering where this went. Why did you take it?"

She took a few steps away from him and trailed her fingertips along the wood of the table. "I knew that you would need it if you were ever going to go out looking for the heart. It would have been too much of a bother to take along a candle or a lantern, so I redrew it for you, so that you could find – it." The irritation in her voice showed that she was not one to be left out and just take it without a fight.

"You traced it?" he said quietly, smiling still. He laid the original letter out on the table and spread out the new map next to it. As far as he could remember, it was accurate enough for a beginner's attempt. He quickly lit the lantern sitting on his desk and held the original letter over the mouth. Holding the two up to the window, one laid over the other, he nodded. "Good work – but that doesn't mean that you're coming along with us today."

She looked so pitifully disappointed that Jack laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "But," he added, "if you're a good girl today, when I get back with the Heart, I'll tell you all you could ever want to know about It. Does that sound like a fair deal?"

She shrugged grudgingly, but didn't protest. Beneath her lowered brows, he could see the gleam of eagerness.

"Right," he said, walking toward the door, new map in one hand. "I should best be going; the sooner I leave, the sooner I return with the Heart, after all."

The men were all ready and waiting for him as he exited his cabin. He adjusted his had on his head. "All right, men. Move out!"

He sat in the bow of one of the small skiffs while his men rowed him ever closer to the island on which he would find the answer to his most pressing problem at the moment.

While he stood surveying the gentle rise of the sand spit, Gibbs joined him silently at his elbow. "I suppose you know how we're to find the Heart, right, Captain? Where it is, some landmarks, things like that."

Jack shoved the map into a pocket. "No. Not the slightest."

Gibbs stared incredulously at him, unbelieving for the first few seconds until he realized that Jack was telling the truth. "Then what do you propose we do, Jack? We can't rightly dig up this whole island." At this point, the crew was listening in eagerly, pretending to be busy securing the boats.

Jack tapped his nose. "You forget, Gibbs, my boy, that I—" He drew out the small black box of his compass. "—I have a magical compass."

Jack opened the lid with a theatrical gesture and held the compass as level as he could. The arrow swung around wildly, several times seeming to rest pointing back towards the _Black Pearl_, but finally it slowed and stopped, pointing to the north-east. Eyes still fixed on it, Jack motioned to the men behind him. "Straight ahead."

The island was very much longer than it was wide, and, unfortunately for them, Jack's compass directed them along the long of it. As the sun rose higher in the sky, Jack was reminded exactly why he had decided to wake the others up at sunrise; it was already becoming unbearably hot, and the sun hadn't yet reached its zenith. The sand absorbed the heat and reflected the light into their eyes.

The compass arrow didn't once shift, but continued pointing due north-east.

Gibbs walked at Jack's shoulder. Wiping the sweat away from his eyes for the third time, he said, "I think I speak for the whole crew, Jack, when I say, 'are you sure you know where you're going?' There was that time, after all, when the compass didn't point to where you thought it was pointing. Maybe it's doing that now. Maybe your heart's desire is water, and the compass directing you to the ocean."

"Nonsense, Gibbs. If that were the case, it would have pointed directly behind us on the beach. It's leading us somewhere for certain."

Gibbs huffed, a little out of breath having to climb a dune and to speak at the same time. "But you don't know that it's pointing to the Heart–"

"Of course I do." Jack stopped and turned to the line of men behind him, tagging along like ducklings. Mutinous ducklings. Sweaty, thirsty, mutinous little ducklings. He waved at them to stop. "We'll take a short break here. Find some shade."

He turned back to Gibbs when they were safe in the thin shade from a cluster of palm trees. "Of course it's pointing to the Heart. If I find the Heart, then I'm guaranteed to live – well, at least I won't have to worry about Davy Jones or Beckett. And, you know me, Gibbs; what do I love more than my own life?" He grinned and pulled out a flask filled with rum and took a long draw.

Gibbs looked doubtfully to the north-east. "Well," he said, his mind running over all of Jack's numerous passions in life, all of which he could easily love more than something as mundane as being alive. There was the _Pearl_. And the women and the rum, and treasure…

"That's right. Nothing." He turned to the men, spread out beneath the occasional palm tree. "All right, we're almost there. I can feel it. Get up, let's go!"

They were certainly not almost there. After three more dunes, the arrow still remained pointing in the same direction, without the slightest twitch. At the peak of the third dune, the treasure-hunting party stopped. They had reached the northernmost tip of the spit. Pale Caribbean water lapped peacefully at the smooth cream-white beaches.

Jack consulted the compass again, tapped its glass and shook it a little. The arrow continued pointing north-east. He shrugged. "I guess it must be somewhere around here."

The men sat down in the shadow of the dune at its base, watching their captain. Jack walked across every centimeter of the tip, backtracking and turning in circles. The arrow still pointed off into the ocean. At the far end, the waves licking at his boots, he stopped.

This couldn't be. He shook it again, violently. "Come on, you. I want the Heart, I want the Heart, I want the Heart." He closed his eyes tight and visualized what it had looked like in that strange chest, how it had felt, still warm and beating in his hands, the way it had looked all covered in dirt in his jar before Norrington stole it. He opened one eye. The arrow pointed to the north-east. "Damn it, I know it's here. Show me where it is," he pleaded.

Gibbs laid a hand on Jack's shoulder, and Jack flinched. "Captain? Where should we start to dig?"

Jack ran a hand over his face and wiped the sweat off on his pants. "Er." He shook the compass again. "I guess – down there." He indicated to a point just off the island in the swelling water.

"In the water," Gibbs said, his face completely deadpan.

"Yes." Jack looked back down at his compass in despair. "I don't _care_ about the bloody ocean, you stupid, stupid compass. What good is it to me if I'm dead?"

Jack continued trying to reason with the compass as Gibbs rested his arm across Jack's shoulders and gently led him down the shore, back to the _Pearl_. "I don't understand it, Gibbs," Jack said finally, just as they came upon the boats scattered on the beach. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Well, maybe the tide will recede and maybe we'll find it then," Gibbs said soothingly. "But right now, we need to get the men fed and watered, or else we have a mutiny on our hands, and then you'd have all the time in the world to dig to the other side of the world, if need be. But that wouldn't do you much good if you didn't have a ship."


	9. Nine

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Chapter Nine**

The crew set up a bonfire on the beach when the sun began to set. Jack, however, wouldn't have any part of it. He sat well out of the warm circle of light that jumped from the tall flames, while the rest of the crew hurried about preparing a rude meal of slaughtered roosters and hardtack. The only movement he made was to climb back on the _Pearl_ and to return to his place on the beach with a few bottles of rum in hand.

After the first bottle was finished, he took out his compass and set it open on the sand, watching the arrow rest placidly pointing to the north-east. "My heart's desire, my arse." He uncorked the second bottle, a satisfying, hollow _pop_!

Cotton appeared wordlessly at his side and offered him a leg of one of the roosters they had roasted. Jack leaned away and shook his head, automatically falling mute himself out of habit or respect. But Cotton grabbed his hand and forced the greasy leg of meat into his grip, then walked away, the parrot on his shoulder squawking irately. Jack sniffed the leg – it smelled safe enough – and took a bite.

The sun having set more than an hour before, the sky was dark, and there wasn't even the barest hint of light to the west. The only light now was from the dying bonfire; the men were hard-pressed finding more firewood, as palm trees tend not to die and magically divide into log-sized pieces, and they were all feeling rather sorry for themselves after the disappointment earlier in the day. It was all just an excuse to lie about, of course.

Jack heard muted footfalls in the sand behind him, and he half-expected Cotton to silently hand him another chicken leg or something equally tasty – for even though he was busy feeling sorry for himself as well, he was still hungry. But there were no chicken legs. He could tell that someone had sat down next to him by the shadow that had fallen over his still compass; his eyes darted quickly to the side. Without turning his head, he knew it was Helen.

The rum was gone. He thought he'd had two more bottles, but when he felt to the side for them, he came up with three empty ones. Obviously, his crew was punishing him, playing a trick on him after he led them on that fruitless treasure hunt during the heat of the day. He started trying to stand, but fell back down immediately when the world tipped wildly to the side. Never mind – he did drink it all.

His over-balanced attempt at standing sent him falling against Helen's shoulder. She pushed him off, and he rolled over gracelessly. Jack didn't move to get up, just reached down to get his compass and hold it up in the light from the fire.

Finally, the silence becoming unnerving, Jack said, without turning around, "I suppose I know what it is that you want."

"Did your magic compass show you that, just as it showed you where the Heart was?" Jack didn't laugh. "Jack." She stopped, began again hesitantly. "Jack, I have some rum."

He rolled over, trying to separate the definite shadow of the stout rum bottle from her more indefinite form, backlit by the fire. "Give it," he said, reaching his hand out.

The rum sloshed against the glass as she held it away from him. "I'll give it if–" Jack groaned an unintelligible complaint. "You'll get this rum if you tell me about the Heart."

He glared at her, but realized that she might not be able to see it, so he said, "I'll tell you about the Heart if you give me my rum."

She shook the contents of the bottle. "No. We have no deal, if that's the case. Either you tell me, or – I pour this out. I'd like you at least slightly sober for this, thank you very much."

Jack stood suddenly – staggering – intent on storming away and leaving her in the dark for a while longer. But as he began to move away, his compass, fastened always on his person by a worn leather thong, hit his leg with a dull _snap_ and swung slowly at his side, hanging nearly to his feet. He sat down again, a little bit up the shallow rise of the beach from Helen, and he could hear the sharp _click-clack-click_ of the lazily twitching disk. He pulled the thong loose and made to throw it away from him – but stopped and handed it to Helen. "You want to know about the Heart?"

She placed the compass on her lap. "Yes."

Jack lay back down again, pillowing his head with an arm. "There isn't much to tell, really," he said after a moment. He heard Helen sigh behind him. And then he heard the cork. He looked over his shoulder – she had the cork out. The next came in a rush: "Really. It's Davy Jones's heart – he cut it out ages ago, the crazy bastard – and so anyone who finds it and gets a hold of it basically controls every ocean imaginable. He has something of a personal vendetta against me – debts, you know how it is. I need that Heart, or else his little sea monsters are going to snap the _Pearl_ in two."

"Davy Jones?"

"_You_ know." Jack wiggled his fingers around in a feeble attempt to mimic an octopus's tentacles. She stared at him wide-eyed. "Well, of course you know. Davy Jones. Captain of the _Flying Dutchman_. The ghost ship. _You know_."

"I wasn't raised by the sea," she said.

"Ah." Jack shrugged. "Not that important, anyways. I just need to find me that Heart, or else I might have to find a different employ – something safer, on land, away from the beasties." His eyes were gradually adjusting to the low light; he could see her face better now than before. She was frowning. "Does that quench your thirst for knowledge? How about if I quench my thirst with that rum, hm?"

She ran her thumb along the side of the compass box. "When are we going back to port?"

"That's a bit sudden, isn't it?" He was pleased to see that she set the rum bottle down next to her – safe. "I haven't heard one peep of complaint out of you the past weeks – well, I have actually–"

"You're planning on dropping me at the nearest port, aren't you?"

Jack couldn't tell exactly where she was staring because of the dark, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that it was right at his face. He closed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You have no use for me anymore, do you? You have the letter – an unexpected bonus for saving my life."

"Yes, well– what's this all about, anyway? I thought we were talking about the Heart. And in that vein, where's the rum you promised me?"

She handed him the bottle without a fight. After he had taken one swig, she said quietly, "I heard the men talking. You're going to leave me at the next port."

Jack's thoughts immediately went to Gibbs. "I don't see–" Her stare stopped him. Someone had finally gotten up to get more firewood, and the flames licked high enough that the light reached them again. He would be honest with her, now that he could see her; it was so much easier to lie in the dark. "It's true that we don't usually tolerate women aboard this ship. Distractions, all of them. And, yes, you won't be staying aboard much longer, but–"

"The minute you leave me on land, Beckett will find me." Her face was hard, determined, shifting strangely in the firelight. "I know he will, because he knows I took the letter; if he isn't certain yet, that won't stop him from detaining me until I confess. I've met him once, just a minute's glimpse, when he had me put aboard that goddamned merchant ship. He won't stop until he has the Heart, and now that I'm part of this–" She snapped open the compass and snapped it closed again, restless movement. "Even if I know _nothing_, I'm part of this. I'm as dead on land as you are at sea, if he finds the Heart first."

Jack's hand had remained still while she spoke, resting beside him in the sand, his fist clenched around the neck of the bottle. His stare seemed to unnerve her; she opened the compass again and looked down at it. The wooden disk inside clicked quietly against the box, then stopped. He leaned over and looked at the face of it – the arrow pointed north-east.

Jack sat back, propping himself up with one arm. "You want to stay on?"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" she mumbled.

"Of course you do. We always have a choice." She stared down at the compass which spun quietly around. "Anyway, you remind me of someone."

This got her attention. The compass lay forgotten in her hands, and she stared curiously at him. When he fell silent, she said, "Who?"

Jack waved his hand dismissively. "It's not important. All the matters to _you_ is that you get to stay on the _Pearl_. Don't question acts of kindness." He finished the rum and let his hand slide back so that he was lying on the sand again, looking up at the bright stars. Helen lay a few feet away from him, curled so he could only see the top of her head.

"What do you do now?" she said.

Jack shrugged. "Wait for Fate to intervene."

She rested her cheek against the forearm that pillowed her head. "That's all?"

He smiled, eyes closed. "Well, I didn't say we would sit around waiting for Fate, did I?. We're going to actively force her hand." He stopped when he heard the clicking of the disk in his compass moving again. He observed, "You seem to be very indecisive." And then to himself, "Just like a woman."

"I hate sailing. I hate the ocean." She stared sullenly at the swinging arrow. "But I can't step foot on land without it getting shot off by the Royal Navy." Helen fell silent abruptly. Her expression grew hard again, and she closed in on herself – he knew what she was thinking of.

Jack still couldn't really believe it; Norrington wouldn't let himself be bested by a woman. Even if he did let Elizabeth get away with so much, he had learned his lesson. Probably. "Is he really dead?"

Pause. "I suppose."

"That's a relief, I guess." But he still wasn't sure. He would believe it when he saw Norrington's grave. He had himself convinced they were talking about different men.

"Poor James." The gentle whispers of the waves nearly drowned out her voice entirely.

Jack turned his head slowly to look at her. The fire was almost completely dead again, most of the men peacefully asleep, lying in the sand around its warmth. He could see the barest reflections of her staring eyes. "You knew him?"

Her face tiled up slightly to his. There was a moment of quiet contemplation, and then she stood, brushing what sand she could off her dress. "I'm going back to the ship."

"Hey!" She didn't stop, and if he wasn't mistaken, she walked a little faster.

Of course, she wouldn't be able to get onto the deck all by herself, but he didn't get up to stop her. Jack turned his attention back to the sky above and the gradually brightening stars. This was what he always missed when he was on land: the time to just stop everything and lay down and absorb the world and _think_.

And tonight he certainly had a lot to think about.


	10. Ten

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Thank you for your continuing kind words and constructive criticism! It's all very much appreciated, even if I don't get a chance to thank everyone individually.  
The storylines intertwine! This chapter is a bit shorter than the average only because it's really the first part of a much larger chapter (the second part will be Chapter Eleven).

**Chapter Ten**

Lord Beckett had been feeling very poorly recently, and he decided that he would blame his ill health on the cook, if he could be called a cook. He had spoken to the man once, after a full day's worth of stomach cramps and worse, and he had grinned toothily at him and said that he was a butcher. Now lying stiffly in bed, tensing whenever something inside him prickled, he made a note to himself to do something about the man as soon as they reached port.

There was a quiet knock at his door. He turned his head, saw the tall outline in the glass, and said loudly, "What do you want, James?" Norrington hesitated a moment, then opened the door and peeked his head in. _Bloody tall bastard_– His stomach cramped again, and he glared at Norrington with the dislike only those in agony can feel.

"We've sighted land, sir."

"Thank God," Beckett said with feeling. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and tested his weight on his feet. A brief dizzy spell hit him, and he had to sit back down and pretend as though that was his intention. "How much longer, would you say?"

Norrington walked over to the windows and stared out at the flat expanse of sea they were quickly leaving behind. "I would say only a few hours. It's hard to tell with such a variable wind, but we should at least be on land by sundown, barring any unforeseeable events."

"That is good news." Beckett stood now and shuffled over to his coat hanging off the back of his chair. James didn't move. "Is there any reason that you're still here?" His mood wasn't improved by the fact that he seemed to be the only one on board that was having as bad a time as he was.

"The Heart– that's where we're going, right? To retrieve it?"

"Of course."

Again James hesitated before taking leave. "You've hid it far away, then."

Beckett said again, "Of course. Now, if you will excuse me– I have a pile of papers that I must look to before we land."

James bowed, but Beckett couldn't help but catch the look that he gave him before he averted his eyes to the floor. He walked out and shut the door behind him.

Beckett went to lie down in his bed again. He decided that Norrington didn't know, but that he might suspect. It would become a problem if he somehow found out. He would make sure that Mercer kept a close eye on the ladder down to the hold. Realistically, he didn't want to get rid of someone that could be so useful to his plan, and he would do anything to avoid such an unfortunate event.

Norrington stood at the bow of the HMS _Endeavour_, leaning against the railing. Growing rapidly over the previously endlessly flat line of the ocean, he could see the gentle contours of low mountains and rounded hills and wide beaches.

Beckett had insisted that they travel to Nassau, presumably to recover the Heart. But why Beckett, whom Norrington had always considered cunning enough for his purposes– why Beckett would want to hide such a valuable item in Nassau of all places, Norrington dared not openly question.

"Admiral, sir."

Norrington turned. "Yes, what is it?"

"We should arrive in port in less than two hours."

"Good." He turned back to watching the small island grow and lengthen.

"Sir, should I tell his Lordship?"

Norrington smiled briefly down at his hands. "No, I don't think Lord Beckett wants to be disturbed at the moment."

They docked before noon. Lord Beckett looked paler and fouler than ever before, and he refused frequent offers of help while walking down the plank to the dock. He stood there waiting as Norrington saw to it that the captain handled the rest of the details that needed to be dealt with before he could get some rest. Norrington glanced over the railing once and saw Beckett leaning on his cane, doing his best to stand up straight and not curl in on the discomfort. One hand was always gripping his stomach.

When Norrington was satisfied that the captain would do nothing that might otherwise damage the ship, he joined Beckett – who was now sitting on some crates – on the dockside. "Would you like to find a room, sir? Perhaps rest a bit before going out to get the Heart?"

Beckett ground his teeth. "Yes." He used his cane to pull himself up and started off immediately at a slow, halting pace. Norrington had to significantly shorten and slow his strides. "I am going to kill that bastard cook," he groaned.

Their walk was slow up the light slope of the street and into the heart of the town. Norrington strolled with forced leisure, trying to ignore all the strange looks that Beckett was getting from passers-by. He glanced quickly down at the lord: his face was drawn into a grotesque scowl that likely accounted for the wide berth most people were giving them.

Beckett turned at the first respectable inn that he saw and walked in with deliberate determination. When the innkeeper took too long in attending to them, he walked behind the counter, grabbed a key, and stalked off down the hallway. Before out of earshot, he muttered to Norrington, "Pay for me and buy a room for yourself." He started away, but paused a moment and added, "And bring me some food. Something healthy and solid. Some wine."

The innkeeper saw him. "Hey! You there! Have you paid? Stop, I tell you!"

Norrington intervened. "Sir." He grabbed onto the man's shoulder and turned him around. "I'm supposed to pay for his Lordship's room."

The man's anger disappeared quickly, replaced by sickening servility. "Oh," he said and bowed, "oh, I'm so sorry, sir– Admiral, sir. His Lordship, you say, sir? Well, of course, that's fine. Follow me, if you will, sir."

Norrington gave him enough money for two rooms. With his key in his hand, he asked, "Is there anywhere where I can get quality food?"

The innkeeper was closely examining his coins and bit the corner of one, before he stopped himself in shame. "I don't mean to insult you, sir, but I must–"

James waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, yes, go ahead. But the food. Where can I find food?"

"Oh! There's a tavern a few doors down. They bake their own bread, and we buy our wine from them sometimes. Sir."

"Thank you." It was fairly obvious as soon as he was on the streetwhich tavern the man had been referring to. The smell of yeast and flour and rising dough pervaded the surroundings in a wholly pleasant way. He opened the door to the loud and raucous shouts of a group of sailors in the back corner. The moment they saw him, however, dressed in his finest uniform, they all fell silent and leaned guiltily over their cups and plates. The advantages of being a man of status; but he was in no mood to lecture them, so he ignored them.

The barkeep inched down the bar to him nervously. "What can I get for you, sir?"

"Some bread and wine. And do you have any specialties?"

"No, sir. But our cook makes tasty roasted chicken."

"Then I'll have some of that, as well." The man bowed hesitantly and rushed back to the kitchen to shout the orders.

While he waited, Norrington sat on a tall barstool. The group in the corner was still quiet, and they were sneaking glances over at him in a way that made his Navy-trained senses nervous. He turned his head as much to the side as he dared, enough to examine some of the faces on the farther end of the table. One of them looked surprisingly familiar, but he decided that that wasn't at all unusual, since many sailors traveled extensively around the Caribbean, and Nassau was a common port to stop at.

But there was one, one of the men with his back towards the door. There was something very familiar with the way he sat and the way he moved. Norrington couldn't place it.

The barkeep placed a paper bundle of all his bread and wine bottle on the counter in front of him, the loosely packaged roasted chicken beside it. Norrington paid him and walked down the street with full arms back to Beckett's room.

After dinner, Beckett was apparently feeling well enough, because he asked for Norrington to go out and find their cook. When he inquired as to the reason, Beckett simply smiled and took another sip of wine.

Now Norrington was sitting in the common area of the inn, eating his own dinner – Beckett had graciously thanked Norrington for his trouble and proceeded to force him out of the room without even a bite. The cook exited Beckett's room and walked down the hall looking rather disappointed, and slipped out to the street without saying a word to Norrington.

Beckett appeared soon after, dressed once again in a coat of fine, stiff brocade. "Come, Norrington," he said, banging his cane impatiently on the floor. He didn't pause long at Norrington's table.

"Sir? I haven't finished my–" The door slammed shut behind him, and James looked down at his half-finished meal. Then he sighed; whatever it was, it had to be important for Beckett to drag himself out of his sick bed so soon upon arriving. They were to stay in Nassau for at least a week, so he ruled out the Heart as being the reason. Beckett was prudent enough to know to keep it hidden as long as he could. He pushed on his hat and ran out the door to catch up to him. "Where are we going?" he asked wearily.

"To get the Heart."

Norrington's pace quickened unconsciously. "You're willing to risk it being stolen?"

Beckett said nothing.

They rounded a corner and took the road that sloped down to the harbor. It was nearly dark now, but Norrington could see the white sails of so many ships in harbor. He saw the HMS _Endeavour_ moored very close to the center of the long dock.

_Helen_.

Norrington stopped mid-step. Where had that thought come from? His hand instinctively drifted to the wound on his chest. It must have twinged, he decided, and that was what had reminded him of her. He hadn't actually consciously thought of her for–

Norrington grabbed Beckett's arm and forcefully dragged him into a small alley.

Beckett tried to struggled out of his grasp, shouting, "Norrington, get the _hell_ off–"

But Norrington clamped his hand over his mouth. "Quiet, and I'll let you go. But you have to be quiet."

Beckett forced his hand off, but said not a word. He followed Norrington's gaze.

A girl, looking distractedly at something in her hand, was walking up the street towards them. She hadn't seemed to notice the struggle.

Without taking his eyes from her, Norrington found his pistol tucked in his belt and half-cocked it.


	11. Eleven

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Sorry for the wait. This chapter gave me a good deal more trouble than I expected. One thing I learned from writing this: It is very hard to write chapters in hundred word chunks spaced out over a few days. I ended up scrapping what I had and rewriting it again. It was much easier the second time. Anyway, finals are over, so hopefully I'll have more time to write!

**Chapter Eleven**

Helen noticed the uncommon wariness in Jack as soon as he walked up to her late in the evening, his arms outstretched and an insolent grin on his face. Certainly not the face of a man on edge, but his voice didn't sound quite right to her ears.

"Hello, darling." He attempted a grope, but she dodged him with practiced skill. Instead, he settled for a strong arm over her shoulders; he turned her around and they began walking down the sloping street to the docks.

Trying to slip out of his grasp, she said, "What are you doing?"

"Well, you know, I just thought that tonight would be a good night to turn in early. Take a break from celebrating, and all that. None of the ladies I've run across have been very good company, and I'm starting to weary a bit of rum, rum, rum, all the time. Some grog might do me good. Or water. Or maybe some tea."

Helen managed to pry her shoulder free from his grip, but he didn't stop for a moment. He didn't even look back. "Jack!" She hurried a few steps after him.

Without turning, he waved his hand in convulsing circles. He yelled back to her, "You're welcome to stay on the _Pearl_ tonight, love. In fact, I would suggest it, but you do what you want with your money." And he disappeared into the shadows that collected at the end of the row of warm houses.

Helen stood watching him until a sharp breeze ruffled her skirts and reminded her how tired and how very alone she was. She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed them to keep away a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

Whatever Jack was worried about, she decided, was either completely imagined on his part; or else if it happened to turn out to be true, it wouldn't involve her to the extent that she should have to unnecessarily suffer another night in a hammock. She was determined to sleep in a real bed, no matter how dirty it may be. Anything would be an improvement over the close quarters and strange smells of the forecastle.

Decided, she turned back the way she had been heading before Jack stopped her and slowly walked up the slanted road, counting the coins in her open palm by the dim light of candles in windows and occasional lanterns. After nearly a week spent in port, she had very nearly run out of the spending money Jack had given her when they arrived – 'to buy something nice,' he had said, giving her stained and torn dress a significant stare. And that had been the first thing she did, buying a new dress, something which she immediately regretted, since the dressmaker sold one to her overpriced. Tonight would be her first and only night for a long time when she would have a chance to sleep in a real bed.

As she neared the small cluster of some of the more respectable inns at the top of the wide main street, she began to lose what little light she had. It was late enough that nearly all the candles in the cheerful windows had been extinguished, and most of the lanterns had long ago guttered. Her eyes were slow in adjusting to the dark, and she reached out and ran her fingers along the rough walls to keep her way.

What was Jack up to, she wondered. Ever since her hidden map had failed him, he had seemed to drift without much purpose. They had reached Nassau only a few days after his treasure hunt, and Jack turned immediately to rum and whores to relieve his depression. Or maybe that was just a convenient excuse.

Whatever he had planned next, with regards to the Heart, Helen had no idea. Her interest in this quest of his for the elusive Heart of Davy Jones, the very devil of the seas, was fervent enough to border on obsession.

Anyway, he wouldn't tell her anything about it, so how could she feel otherwise than–

A hand thrust out of the shadows and clamped over her mouth. Her shoulder blades slammed painfully into the stone wall of a narrow alley, and the base of her skull felt bruised and soft like an old fruit. Someone pressed their body full length against hers to keep her from moving.

The ringing in her ears didn't quiet even as she blinked away the dancing spots of darkness and light from her vision. She shut her eyes shut tight, hoping that it was Jack, who had somehow managed to double back without her noticing, playing a trick on her.

She squinted her eyes, open just barely enough to make out the vague pale swatch of a face. There was no easy smile of white and gold, no light tinkle of beads, and no pungent whiff of old rum. There was something cold pressed against her forehead.

Her eyes widened.

Norrington smiled, the strange shadows and planes in his face giving it an expression similar to a grinning skull. He pressed the barrel of the pistol harder into her forehead and laughed at her horrified cringe. "How long has it been since we saw each other last, Helen? You might remember that when you left me, I was laying on the ground in a warm pool of my own blood. Do you remember that? Does it give you a nasty turn, seeing me alive? You thought you killed me; think again." He slid his hand from her mouth, down to her neck. "Where is he?" There was a feverish gleam to his features; the look in his eyes frightened Helen more than she could have imagined.

She was gasping for breath as his hand pressed harder and harder against her throat. All she could manage was a faint, "What?"

He had let his pistol-hand fall to his side, and now he shook her hard. "We know that you're in league with him. It won't do you any good trying to protect him; we all know that if he were in your position, he would betray you without a second thought. Where is he?"

"Oi, Helen!"

They both turned their heads to the street. They could hear the halting stumbles of feet as someone approached their alley. _God, Jack, no–_

Norrington listened silently, a look of satisfaction creeping slowly over his features. He turned back to her, whispered, "Call to him."

_Two birds with one stone–_ Helen shifted uneasily and shook her head. No, she remembered now what Jack had long ago said of his rapport with Norrington, and she knew that either would be more than glad to kill.

Jack's voice was closer. "Helen? I know you came up this way. Why are you hiding from me? I think it would be best if you just stayed at the _Pearl_ tonight. I saw some soldiers wandering around town just now. It's not safe."

Norrington turned her face towards him, and in the dark she could see a familiar look of intensity in his eyes. "Call to him," he said quietly, firmly. He waited. "Helen," he hissed. The footfalls were closer now, muffled by the loose dirt of the road, but certainly growing closer.

"Jack?" Her voice rose weakly at the end.

The footsteps stopped. He was around the corner. She could hear his breaths and the silent void of them when he held his breath to listen. Norrington's hand on her neck was sweaty.

"Helen? What are you doing down there? You should be inside, anywhere. It's dangerous out." The fact that he didn't just stroll into the alley told her that he could tell that there was something wrong. He appeared around the corner of the building, in the mouth of the alley, searching for her in the dim light.

The sound of Norrington cocking his gun was what warned him. He took one look at the situation and ran.

Norrington sprang into immediate action. Still gripping Helen by the neck, he swung her around and into the arms of a man that had been hidden by the shadows. "Make sure she doesn't escape." He disappeared into the dark, following the direction of Jack's echoing footsteps.

Neither moved, both listening. Then a shot: _Bang!_ It echoed in the silence. Helen held her breath.

The town settled again into a sleepy silence. The man in the shadows sucked in a breath and, adjusting his hold on her hands, said, "Well, I wonder if he got him. That would make my job much easier, at least."

Helen's skin prickled. _That voice_–

She struggled to turn around to see his face, but then she felt the cold circle of a pistol on the back of her head. "Walk," he said. He didn't speak as they walked slowly over the uneven planks of the dock, toward the very end and toward a majestic ship-of-the-line.

Two sailors from the watch scurried toward the railing with a large plank in hand when they saw their approaching forms. They saluted the man behind her as he pulled her up roughly from the deck. "Good evening, Lord Beckett, sir. What are your orders?"

Helen froze and nearly fell again onto the deck, because Beckett started pushing her with greater insistence toward a ladder down to the deck below. Before he shoved her down into the darkness below, he turned to the sailors and said, "Make sure no one disturbs us."

He grabbed Helen by the arms again as soon as she set foot on the deck below. She made a sudden, hopeless attempt for freedom, but he snagged her dress and snapped her back against the ladder with enough force that, for the second time that day, she found herself on the verge of unconsciousness.

In an absurdly calm voice, he said, "No, no; _this_ way," and pulled her along to a dimly outlined door.

He pushed her to the floor and locked the door behind them. The room was dark; Helen huddled close to a chair as a source of comfort. The room gradually grew lighter as Beckett paced around the circumference of it, lighting carefully placed small lanterns.

As he walked, he spoke. "I didn't even dare to hope that we would have the good fortune of finding you again." He glanced quickly over his shoulder. "Oh, stop looking so shocked; you knew this day would come. You can't run forever; the world is shrinking, leaving less and less space for criminals like you."

Helen burst out desperately, "It was an accident–!"

Beckett turned around suddenly, his pistol out once more. He aimed at her with a straight, steady arm. "Then I won't make the mistake you made." He took a short step toward her, maybe to get a better view of her in the dim light. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused?"

Helen pulled back into the shadow of a large desk, watching only his gun.

"I should kill you now, save myself the trouble later – you'll find a way to escape soon, no doubt, and then we'll be back to where we started." His serious expression changed slowly, until his smile was the same he wore on the day he had sentenced her to death, the day he had placed her on the merchant ship, the day he had made sure her irons were good and tight.

There was a sudden noise outside, the loud clatter of people clumsily descending the ladder. His attention was distracted only momentarily, and when he heard the indignant shouts of some sailors, he turned back to her and smiled. "I _should_ kill you. But–" Someone ran hard into Beckett's door, and the knob jiggled madly. "–I think that Norrington would like to deal with you first," he said quietly.

He crossed the room calmly. The shouts on the other side of the door were louder now. Beckett unlocked the door and opened it. Norrington tumbled in, followed closely by the two sailors Beckett had set on guard.

The two men froze and looked up at Beckett. One of them struggled up and said, "We're terribly sorry, sir, but this man put up quite a fight. I know you said that you were not to be disturbed–" He took his first look at the man they had tackled and found himself completely at a loss for words. His companion seemed to notice at the same time, for they both began backing up toward the open door. The first one held up his hands. "We're terribly sorry, Admiral, sir. And my Lord. Er, terribly sorry." They shut the door behind them, eager to leave before either Beckett or Norrington could say a word.

A short silence followed. Helen stared shocked at Norrington, sprawled on the floor a few feet away; Norrington lay on the ground, fuming; Beckett stood over both with an amused grin on his face.

Beckett was the first to move. He walked over to Norrington and held out a hand to help him up. Norrington took it, but did most of the standing up on his own – he was good a head taller than Beckett, after all. Immediately after he was on his feet, he rubbed his face with a hand and paced across the room. His wig had fallen off in the struggle, so his short brown hair stood up in untidy tendrils around his head, adding to his agitated appearance.

Beckett watched him. "You didn't shoot him?"

Norrington stopped. "Not for want of trying," he snapped. "He slipped away before I could get a good aim." He took a deep breath and smoothed his hair down with an impatient sweep of his hands. That was when he saw Helen. "You should be dead," he said abruptly. His voice carried none of the emotion which he had expressed earlier; he was stating a fact, not a wish or a desire.

His words stung all the same, and Helen wanted to hurt him, too. "So should you."

His expression hardened. "_You_ shot _me_. I did nothing wrong."

"Oh, don't feign innocence, James. You would have killed Joseph if I hadn't found him first. How can an intended murderer be free of blame?"

This proved to be too much for him. "Perhaps you should ask that of your lover. Wanted for – what was it? – theft, burglary, murder? Was he so innocent, Helen? I may have been meaning to kill him, but at least his death would have meant safety for others."

Helen was on the defensive. "He was changed, James. He told me. He said–"

"You actually trusted him?" Norrington scoffed. "All right, suppose he had had changed, suppose he had repented for his previous misdeeds. Then what about you? What about your innocence?" His face twisted into a snarl. "You _shot_ me, Helen. You shot me, and then you searched me, stole the letter, and left me to die."

"I didn't– I didn't mean to. It was an accident–"

"That was _no_ accident, Helen."

Beckett reined the argument in. He said quietly, "James." Norrington turned his head just enough to look at him; Beckett pulled out a chair and motioned him over. "There will be time for this later. But right now, I think we have much more pressing matters that need to be dealt with." When Norrington didn't immediately tear himself away from his dispute with Helen, he said sharply, "Norrington."

Norrington stalked over to the chair. When Beckett was satisfied that he had settled obediently, he walked around the desk to Helen. "Up," he said, and he grabbed her arm and forced her into the chair next to which she had been hiding. "Now–" He had saved the most comfortable chair, his chair, for himself, and he sat in it now. "–I think the information that interests us most–" He glanced pointedly at Norrington who was looking away from them both with his arms crossed. "–is just how much Sparrow knows."

Helen couldn't meet his eyes. The anger that was radiating from Norrington distracted her so that she couldn't seem to concentrate on anything else. With effort, she turned part of her attention to Beckett. "I don't understand."

"What does he plan to do next?"

"I don't know. But even if I did," she said, "what advantage would be in it for me to tell you?"

Beckett smiled. "Well, you would get to keep your life." He brought out the small pistol and lazily pointed it at her. "Unless that means nothing to you."

Helen sat back in her chair. "I don't know anything about it." And this was true; Jack, if he had a plan at all, was smart enough to know that he shouldn't trust her, an outsider, with the information. She told herself that she didn't resent him for it.

"He knows about the heart: that much is a given. We all know that you probably gave up the secret – along with many other things – the moment he asked." This comment earned Beckett a quick glance between amusement and annoyance from Norrington. Helen stood abruptly. But Beckett raised his gun. "Quietly, now. You wouldn't want me spooking and accidentally shooting you, now, would you?"

But they soon decided that Helen was going to be of little help to them, that night at least. Beckett took care in locking her securely in his cabin, then motioned for Norrington to follow him. He stopped on the main deck, leaned against the railing, stared out at the dark town up the hill. "Do you think he knows?" he asked Norrington quietly.

Norrington stood stiffly to his side and back a few steps. He said, "Where it is? No, if he knew where it was, he would have it already, knowing him. But–" He squinted into the darkness. He was out there somewhere. "But I think it's safe to say that he knows that you know where it is."

Beckett straightened, decided. "Yes. We will have to leave before sunrise. We wouldn't want him tagging alone, would we?"


	12. Twelve

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: You can't see this (I hope), but I am currently prostrating myself before you, begging for you to condescend to review. Please?

**Chapter Twelve**

Jack had been crouched in the alleyway for upwards of an hour, and he was just now beginning to feel more than a little foolish.

It couldn't have been Norrington, he told himself. Norrington was dead. Helen shot him. And even after all the strange things he'd seen in his lifetime, it was hard for him to believe that Norrington had risen from the dead. There was a logical explanation at the end of it all.

Anyway, he hadn't even got a good look at him. A moment's glance in a dark alley doesn't prove anything. A lot of those Navy men look the same in their powdered wigs and blue and white uniforms.

_A trick of the eye_, he assured himself.

But he still stayed hidden. No use taking unnecessary risks.

A long time later – Jack didn't know how long; he lost track counting after one hundred – he finally straightened up, slowly, cautiously. His eyes stayed fixed on the lighter open gap to the street. No shadows moved. If Norrington was waiting for him there at the mouth of the alley, he was being impossibly patient. And as noble as he had claimed to be, he knew Norrington well enough to know that he would have risked at least one shot down they alley to scare him out.

He edged along the wall, trying to avoid any excessive activity that might warn the undead man hiding in the shadows to his movements.

He peeked his head around the corner – no one. No one around the far corner either. With one nervous look back into the close darkness that had hidden him from his imagination, Jack set off down the street with quick, stumbling steps. The habitual swagger was absent, replaced by a more desperate sort of swaying walk.

One thing he was sure of: Helen was with him. Where she was at that moment, though, he couldn't begin to guess. But he would worry about her later; his safety came first.

He knew exactly where Gibbs would be. Earlier in the evening, he had seen his first mate walk purposefully into the nearest – and, Jack guessed, cheapest – whorehouse. It wasn't hard to find, even in the dark; it was the only house on the street with lights still on in the windows.

Jack pushed open the door. The entryway was quiet and dimly lit by candles that lined the tables. The scant light was magnified and reflected by scattered, mismatched mirrors and polished metal plates hanging on the walls. He walked down the hall slowly, looking around at the scores of skewed reflections.

A man stepped out in front of him suddenly. Jack stumbled backwards, then pulled himself back up with dignity. "Are you looking for–?" the man began, sweeping over to a staircase to his right, partially hidden behind the hallway wall.

"Actually," Jack said, interrupting quickly, "I'm looking for a friend. It's very urgent."

The man looked him over, smiled. "Yes, we have plenty of _friends_ here. For the night, it's–"

Completely ignoring him, Jack said, "His name is Gibbs, about so high. A bit of a drinker. Funny looking facial hair?" he added hopefully, brushing his jaw expressively.

The man's eyes darted back to the stairway. "I'm sorry, but I can't say." He knew, Jack decided, judging the way he fidgeted and looked impatient for him to leave.

"Look," Jack said, starting toward the stairs, never turning his back on the man. "It's all right to tell me where he is. Gibbs wouldn't mind; he's good like that. And besides, he– he's expecting me. So, if you would be so kind."

The man didn't move, didn't open his mouth.

Jack turned serious. Time was wasting. "If you don't tell me where he is, I will have to look in every single room. That would be a complete waste of my time and would probably cost you a good deal of money. You can save yourself a load of trouble by just telling me which room he's in."

He wavered. Finally: "Seventeen. Room seventeen."

Jack was up the stairs in a second, walking down toward the end of the hall. "Eleven. Thirteen. Fifteen. Seventeen." He stopped short and pressed an ear to the door. Whatever was going on inside was too quiet for him to hear through the thick wood.

He threw open the door. "Mr. Gibbs? Are you in here, man?"

A shape on the bed convulsed and untangled. "For Christ's sake, Jack!"

Jack crossed to the bed and spotted the naked woman huddled behind Gibbs. He bowed politely, gallantly sweeping off his hat while leering surreptitiously at her. But Gibbs ruined his charm by slapping the side of his head hard enough that he stumbled to the side.

While Jack regained his balance, Gibbs threw off the sheets and roughly pulled on his pants. Belt more or less securely tied, he grabbed Jack's shoulder and forcibly turned him toward the door.

In the hallway, thanks to the more numerous candles, Jack could see Gibbs's face. He looked ready to explode; his face was red and his lips were pressed together until he had none and his eyes were wide and white.

Jack held up a delicate hand and, before Gibbs could tear out his throat, said, "I just saw our friend Norrington. I think."

Slowly, his expression changed. It took Jack's calm statement a minute or two to penetrate the wall of anger that had been building in his mind, but when it did, he gaped at him. Suspicion crept in. "Have you been to the bottle?"

Jack raised his hand, as though taking an oath. "Honestly, I haven't had any. Well, none more than usual. And I've never had such a hallucination, no matter how good the drink or how much."

"Was he real, then?"

"Might have been. But anyway, we can't just ignore him. If he is still alive, we would be risking much more than I'm willing to risk by staying here any longer."

Gibbs paused, examining Jack for any sign of dishonesty or joke. He turned back into the room, leaving Jack to wait in the hall. He listened silently at the door as Gibbs stumbled around the dark room, collecting his things and apologizing sincerely to his company for the night.

When Gibbs joined him, he had the same air about him as a man taking leave of a lover forever – tragic, self-sacrificing. As they approached the stairs, Gibbs muttered quietly, "You _owe_ me, Jack. And if I ever find out that this was some perverted trick of yours, or that you were really just seeing things–"

"I promise you: I think it was him that I saw."

This did little to ease Gibbs's annoyance.

"Helen was with him, though."

They were outside; the night air was finally cooling. Gibbs stopped and stared after Jack. "Helen?" He set off at a much more willing pace. Quietly, he asked, "How much do you think she'll tell them about– you know. About the Heart?" He added quickly, "If he really is alive, I mean."

"You know Helen. Everything or nothing. If he offers enough or asks politely enough–"

"Fuck."

"I know." They had reached the dockside. Jack stopped Gibbs. "Go get as many of the crew as you can find. We have to leave straight away." Jack watched Gibbs hurry off – the fastest he'd seen the man move, excepting when he was chasing after women or rum – and turned again to the _Pearl_.

They had taken care to disguise her before making port at Nassau. She was becoming too well known for them to be able to even anchor out of sight of the town. As far as he knew, she was the only black ship sailing under black sails in the Caribbean. He was proud of her – which was why he was so pained every time he saw her with her new coat of white paint and dirty grey sails.

He retreated to his cabin immediately, staring at the map Helen had copied while he listened to the sounds of his men scurrying around and making ready to sail.

He was really still in too much shock to fully believe that he had seen Norrington. But the more he considered it – the way the man spoke, the way he carried himself, the way he ran, the way he shot – everything led to this stranger being Norrington.

He was more than a little annoyed at this new development. Everything would have tied up so neatly with Norrington dead. He thought he could take on Beckett if he were on his own, but Norrington knew Jack too well for Jack to be able to pull any drastic surprises – not that Beckett didn't know him well. But Beckett, at least, underestimated him.

But there was a small, suppressed part of him that was relieved that his antagonist was alive. Norrington was unpredictable, he thought. If he said the right things, manipulated him in the right ways, he could have the whole Royal Navy on his side. He wasn't ready for him to die, not while he could still be useful.

Someone pounded on his door. "What?"

Gibbs closed the door behind him. "Captain, there's a ship making sail."

Jack followed Gibbs's eyes to the starboard windows, too clouded to make out much other than strangely moving lights. He grinned. "What would you be willing to bet that that is our Norrington's ship?"

"A night with a woman," Gibbs said. Without having to wait for orders, Gibbs rushed back on deck and began shouting at the men in earnest. The activity multiplied.

They would be a bit behind Norrington, but by no means out of reach. The _Pearl_ could easily catch any ship, if she had to.

Again at his desk, Jack pulled his compass out of his belt and held it out in front of him. He lifted the lid.

The arrow pointed unceasingly north, towards land. The Heart was located there, he was sure of it. And buried with that bloody mass of still-pulsing muscle were Jack's hopes for freedom and his dreams for the future. He knew that if he found that heart, he would gain everything he desired – for the moment, at least.

He sighed and pushed the compass toward the center of the table. Outside, the men shouted for the hawsers to be untied. They would soon be under weigh.

Jack joined his men on the deck. He enjoyed the disorder of making sail, of leaving port. Chaos was his natural state; he was most comfortable amidst disaster.

With the shouts and grunts of his crew behind and above him, Jack leaned casually on the rail, watching the lights on Norrington's ship grow smaller and fainter. If he had waited much longer in that alley, Norrington would have been long gone and out of reach. He congratulated his good luck.

He would be sailing right into the mouth of the monster, into the cannon's path.

Helen was already there, he suddenly remembered. Or, at least he assumed she was in the monster's teeth. He squinted through the dark night at the darker shadow, but saw nothing that might immediately make obvious where Helen was.

He stared intently where he thought the brig was, where she was probably locked away. _Don't say a word, Helen_, he willed.

And the _Pearl_ was moving.

Once this was all over, Jack decided he would give out a few extra rations of grog; that had been the fastest they had ever left port.


	13. Thirteen

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: (Oh no! Unlucky thirteen! No wonder this chapter was so difficult to write!) Pasts are revealed, some questions answered. Lots of arguments and angst and stress in this chapter, oh my! Thanks very much to my reviewers, new and old. :D  
I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to update this before I leave, so I will now: I'll probably be unable to access the internet until July 13th. So if I seem inactive, that's why. We'll see if I can get another chapter done before then.

**Chapter Thirteen**

_The chase is on._

Those were the words Beckett spoke after a sailor reported that they had seen a ship leave port shortly after them. A smaller, faster ship.

"The _Pearl_," Beckett said. As soon as the door was closed, Beckett turned to Norrington who was slouching in a chair on the other side of the cramped – but comparatively spacious – room. "Can we outrun him?" There was something nervous in his voice, although Helen would never dare suggest that he was such. He paced a few steps, waiting for Norrington's answer.

Norrington looked up at Beckett, considered his question. "The _Endeavour_ is a fine ship, but she was never made for racing. The _Pearl_ was specially made for swiftness – easier to escape."

"So your answer is no?"

"I'm only assuming."

Beckett turned away, faced the door. "At the very least, we have some time yet before he catches up."

"The wind is in his favor."

Beckett's eyes snapped toward Norrington, silencing him. After a moment's pause, he said, "I'm not about to stop to labor through a long confrontation with Jack, either with guns or with words." He added, as if to himself, "And each is an equally distasteful solution." He moved to the wide windows and crossed his arms, looking out into the blurred night.

Helen said quietly, "Jack's coming for me?"

"Oh, don't be a fool, Helen," Norrington said. "He's coming for the Heart. He has no noble intentions; he just wants to save his skin."

She turned to him angrily, stung by his assuredness. "You don't know that. Listen–"

But Beckett spoke over her. "What went on, exactly, to make you so sure that he will rescue you?"

Helen faltered. "Nothing." And there was truly nothing that would support her claim. Jack had saved her, certainly, but wouldn't anyone who found her like he had? And then there was the matter of the map. He had the map; he had no use for her any longer.

Beckett turned and sat slowly in his chair, never taking his eyes from her. "Do tell."

She looked up at him quickly. "What?"

"Tell us about Jack."

Helen looked from Norrington to Beckett, both watching her with varying degrees of interest and intensity. She looked down. "There's nothing to tell. He rescued me, he found the map, and now he has it."

"That's all?" Norrington asked dryly.

A shock jolted her body. She stared back at him. "_Yes_, that's all. What are you insinuating?" She knew well Jack's reputation with women, but he had never so much as seriously suggested anything to her. At the time, held captive on his ship, she had been glad for it; but now she was beginning to wonder. There was something wrong with her if Captain Jack Sparrow wasn't interested in her.

"I just remembered," Norrington said suddenly. "I spoke to your husband before we left the Colonies. He said to send you his regards if we ever found you alive."

A profound stillness settled in Helen's chest. She stared at him, eyes widened. "Henry?" she asked faintly.

"Yes. A lord of something back home, isn't he?"

"No."

"I thought he was."

"He isn't." Her voice was flat.

They were silent. "Aren't you even going to inquire after his health, or have all your manners escaped you?"

"I assumed he was well if he said to send his regards." She paused. "He said that?" There was a note of hopefulness in her voice. She never wanted to return to him, but she didn't want to think she had caused him inordinate amounts of pain.

"Not in quite the same words."

"Oh." She was aware that Norrington was watching her carefully. _Trying to see if the Helen he knew is still inside?_ she wondered. He would end up disappointed, either way. After what she had been through, seen, experienced, she could never go back to her old life – she didn't want to. Even before all this, she had never been happy with Lord Henry. He was over thirty years her senior, a match made by her father more for the money than out of concern for his daughter's health and happiness.

But he hadn't been a cruel man.

Joseph had relieved some of her loneliness.

Norrington guessed her train of thought. "Joseph is dead." She looked up at him, stricken. "I saw to it that he was hanged."

"Why are you so cruel?"

"Am I cruel in wanting to fulfill my duty? Am I cruel in wanting to protect innocent people from a dangerous man?"

"He wasn't dangerous–"

"No less than five people had died by his hand by the time he was hanged, with perhaps more unknown to us. Is that not dangerous? He _killed_ women like you, Helen."

"He _changed_," she said desperately. "Did you ever ask to hear his side of it all? There were reasons–"

"There are always reasons."

"Yes, but– but he was different."

"Different?"

Helen was on the verge of tears. She took in a deep breath, trying to steady her voice enough to get out the next few words. "He said he loved me, James."

"Men will say many things, usually for the same end."

Her breath hitched, and her throat burned. She held the heel of her palm against an eye. She could still hear him saying it, a whisper against his ear while his fingers traced down her naked spine. She had believed him then.

And her pain was all the worse now because part of her knew that Norrington was right, although all of her fought against the knowledge of it.

She broke down. This was no place for such spectacle, but it had been a stressful past few hours, and all she wanted was food and sleep. Neither of the men moved to comfort her, even though Norrington never took his gaze from her face and she could see Beckett watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Helen slid off her chair and leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes and trying to control her sobs. A muscle in her neck twitched.

After she had calmed down a bit, her sobs now only quiet, intermittent sniffles, Norrington stood. He stepped around her and out the door. Beckett followed a few minutes later, but not before locking her to his heavy desk.

Alone, she curled up on the floor, one hand held at an awkward angle because of the irons. She wiped her eyes; she was exhausted. And Helen couldn't quite believe that she was thinking it, but what she wanted most in the world now was to be back on the _Pearl_, sleeping in her dirty, mildewing hammock. At least there she was among people that weren't waiting for the right moment to shoot her.

And she couldn't stop herself from hoping that Jack's chasing after the _Endeavour_ with such haste was due, at least in a small part, to her.

---

Beckett found Norrington in his cabin on the level above. He was just pouring himself a drink. He looked up when Beckett entered, unannounced, and said, "I should offer you one."

"I would accept."

Norrington got out another glass, poured in the amber liquid, and handed it to Beckett. He walked slowly over to the chair behind his desk and pushed aside the large map that covered the surface.

Beckett spoke first. "Do you think this will turn into a full out battle, if he catches up with us?"

Norrington looked at him over the rim of the glass. He set it on the table in front of him and carefully traced his fingers over the sharp-cut designs in the sides. "This is Jack we're talking about," he said and met Beckett's eyes. "You could probably ask that question of yourself and come up with the same answer I would give."

"Just answer me," Beckett said impatiently. "You've known him more recently than me."

Norrington sighed and looked towards the windows. "If I were in Jack's position, I couldn't imagine attacking this ship, outfitted as the _Pearl_ is. While he may have unpredictability and desperation on his side, we have guns and trained men. In the end, that's all it comes down to."

"You didn't answer my question."

Norrington stared openly at Beckett, but when his superior met his gaze with a hostile stare, he lowered his eyes. "He might attack. But I think it more likely for him to ask for a parlay. He has nothing to bargain with that you know of?"

Beckett shook his head.

"Then we might have a chance of defeating him, if only for now."

The two men silently took sips of their drinks. Beckett set his drink down first. Curiosity was burning at the edges of his mind, encouraged by the adrenaline that was just starting to work its way through his system, anticipating the upcoming confrontation. "So, you knew Helen before she shot you?"

Norrington sighed, a sharp huff of annoyance. But he couldn't lash out at his patron without risking consequences. "Yes." He drained the rest of his drink. "I stayed with her on her husband's estate – for a time."

"Lord Henry, was it?"

"Yes," said Norrington quietly. His eyes were staring off into a corner of the room, unfocused. "Yes, he is a great supporter of the Royal Navy. He has spent countless pounds solely to make sure that our men are well equipped and always ready for battle."

"And it was there that you met Helen?"

Norrington nodded, still unfocused.

Beckett grinned widely. "And she found your company so tiresome that she saw fit to shoot you rather than suffer it any longer?"

"She shot me because I saw her with a lover," Norrington snapped. Beckett went silent; an unexpected development. Norrington appeared even more agitated than before. "I tried to reason with her, but she thought I would tell her husband. And I would have – I did – given the chance. Then she shot me." He glared at Beckett, the drink finally appearing to take hold. "And now you know our little history together. Are you happy? Will you leave me be now?"

The door opened suddenly. "We don't have much time, sir. She's gaining on us too quickly. It'll be a matter of minutes before she draws up alongside."

Norrington stood quickly and bowed with restrained formality to Beckett, before walking towards the door and shutting it behind him.

An interesting development, indeed. It could be very amusing, having the two together on the same ship, Beckett decided. He stood quietly and retreated a level lower to his own quarters. Helen lay on the floor where they had left her. She looked up when he walked in. "Never fear; your lover Jack will be here soon to whisk you away in his arms."

There was no denying the look of hope that crossed her features. So predictable.


	14. Fourteen

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Finally I get a chance to write this. This summer has been a hectic one. And, as I've found before, it's very hard to get back into the habit of writing these things (although knowing that there are actually people reading this has helped – thanks!). This onset of writer's block is sort of ironic, considering I spent two of these weeks away at a writing workshop. I guess I was all written out. My apologies if this chapter is a bit more awkward and stilted than usual; give me some time to get back into the groove of things.

**Chapter Fourteen**

The _Pearl_ cut through the water like a new-formed ghost, reflecting back the wan light of the moon rather than absorbing it like she used to. Jack stood at her bow, brushing his hand lightly over the freshly painted wood. The sails above looked like clouds, obscuring the waxing moon.

"Not good for sneaking, is it, darling?" he murmured quietly under his breath. The _Pearl_ dipped down smoothly in a movement that Jack took for agreement. "Yes, well, no need to worry. As soon as we have the Heart, we'll paint you again. We'll right things." His voice harder, he added, "Just make sure we catch up to that ship, and you can have all the black paint and black canvas you'd like." His eyes had not once left the – he hoped – quickly growing shape of Norrington's ship on the horizon.

He patted his hands over his coat, feeling for the cylindrical shape of his spyglass. It was nearly impossible to see very well in this darkness, but at least that made it easier for him to spot the ship – the lanterns hanging on the deck were the only light on the horizon, other than the stars. But despite the gently rocking lanterns, Jack could tell nothing else of the ship. He closed the spyglass impatiently.

"Tell me when we get closer," he said to no one in particular. Several men stopped and looked over at him, listening. "I'm going to get some sleep."

He wasn't very tired, but he couldn't stand looking at Norrington's ship any longer. He was starting to see things, staring so intently into the darkness for so long – ghost ships that surfaced from the depths, long tentacles of a mythical beast, a barely perceptible disturbance in the ocean currents, spiraling downward. Jack decided that it wasn't good for his health.

He settled himself on his bed, fully clothed and still wearing his boots, and laid back, staring at the low ceiling above.

"Now would be a good time for sleep," he said firmly to himself.

---

The next thing he knew, Gibbs was standing over him, shaking his shoulder violently.

"Oi, I'm up! Stop that, man!"

"The ship has stopped, Captain." Gibbs glanced over his shoulder toward the door that obscured the deck beyond.

"Stopped?"

"They dropped anchor, and now they're waiting for us. Cannons out."

This captured Jack's full attention. "Cannons?" To himself, he muttered, "Bloody git. What the hell does he think he's doing?" He rolled off the bed and walked briskly out onto the deck.

It was early dawn, and he could better see the ship they were pursuing: crisp paint, limp bleach-white sails, the typical Navy vessel. He couldn't see her name, as the inevitably gold-leafed plaque was facing away from them. The gun doors were all open on the side facing them, the port side.

Jack stopped abruptly, and Gibbs narrowly avoided knocking him over.

"Drop anchor just out of the range of their cannons."

"Aye aye, Captain."

The few hours sleep still clouded his brain. Jack leaned against the rail, more because he was having trouble balancing so soon after waking up than to look at ease. All the same, he stared at Norrington's ship with groggy eyes.

Norrington was on that ship. If Jack had been uncertain before whether he had truly seen Norrington, all of his doubts were erased upon seeing the ship ready for a fight. The _Pearl_ would have overtaken them eventually, but he knew that only Norrington would be stupid enough to actually stop his ship and wait for the battle.

There was a loud splash from the starboard side of the _Pearl_, and Jack turned in time to see the heavy chains of the anchor quickly sliding beneath the dark water. A few seconds later, the anchor caught and the ship lurched with sickening suddenness and swung about.

There was a long moment of silence. Jack could see figures moving around on the other deck.

The tall, unmistakable figure of Norrington stepped up to the railing. "Sparrow!" His shout was faint, but the thick fog about them helped it carry clearly.

"Norrington!" Jack answered. When he said nothing more, Jack added, "I thought you were dead? Or does death just not take with people like you?"

"And what would you mean by that?" Norrington's voice carried the familiar bite of formality and pride.

Jack merely laughed.

He had obviously touched a nerve, because Norrington's voice was much louder when he finally spoke again. "What do you want, Jack?"

"That, I think, is obvious. Ignoring the fact that you should be rotting in your grave by now the last I heard of you, I think everything can be summed up in one simple question."

Norrington waited silently.

"Where is the Heart?"

But Norrington didn't have a chance to answer. There was a sudden scream – of rage? of pain? – and then Beckett appeared on deck, dragging Helen behind him.

Jack was momentarily too shocked to say anything. _Beckett?_ He was possibly the last person Jack would have wanted to see – even if he was probably more useful for his goal than Norrington.

Beckett yanked hard on Helen's arm and pulled her in front of him, as though he was expecting Jack to take aim with an unusually long-ranged and accurate rifle. Or maybe he was just trying to make a point: he pressed a pistol to her temple. "I hope you will come quietly, Jack."

Even though her exact expression was blurred by the distance, Jack could tell that Helen was terrified. Her anguished sobs tearing at the silence might have helped clue him in a bit, as well.

Beckett was trying to blackmail him, Jack realized with fury. He was threatening an innocent – well, not so innocent, he amended – a girl that had very little to do with the current situation and nothing at all to do with their long-held grudges, all because he was afraid that Jack might try to best him.

But he needed that Heart.

His brain hissed, _But what about Helen?_ even as he shouted, "You expect me to give up, just like that?" He scoffed, even though he knew the sound wouldn't quite carry over to Norrington's ship. "You're more of a fool than I previously thought – and, believe me, I've always thought of you as a bit of a nutter."

He thought he could hear the pistol's hammer click as Beckett cocked it, but it was probably just his brain substituting in sounds where they ought to be.

"It won't make any difference to me, Jack, if I pull this trigger."

His voice was hard without him meaning it to be. "I'm not giving myself up."

"So you would let me shoot the girl? All so that you could keep hold on your worthless life?" Jack could hear the grin coloring his words. "And I've always thought you were more merciful than that."

"No one's telling you to shoot her."

"Sir." Norrington's voice was sharp and forcibly calm. He didn't turn to Beckett as he spoke, merely tilted his head toward him slightly. The rest of his words were drowned out by the faint lapping of waves against the two ships, but Jack thought he could hear the words "not prudent" and "provocation."

Beckett started at him, rigid with anger. But he let the pistol drop ever so slightly.

Jack took the momentary distraction to shout again, "Where is the Heart? If you tell me where it is, I will leave."

"You're a fool," Beckett shouted coldly, but he let go of his hold on Helen's arm, and she leapt away from him. He regarded her with disinterest.

Jack grinned. "Tell me that when I'm holding Davy Jones's still-beating heart in one hand and gripping the hilt of the sword that is impaled in _your_ heart in the other."

Beckett smirked despite himself: a challenge. "So, it is to be a race, then?"

"Whoever makes it to the Heart first."

"And how do you propose to do that when you have no idea where the Heart actually _is_?"

"I have my ways. It would be imprudent to reveal them now, wouldn't it?" He turned to his men. "Weigh anchor! Make ready to sail!"

---

Helen's throat was raw from screaming his name before Beckett cuffed her lightly and said, "Shut it, he won't hear you now."

She fell to the ground and rested her back against the railing, bringing her knees to her chest and trying to gain control of her sobs. He hadn't saved her. She had been so sure– he hadn't even asked if she was all right. A frightening mixture of pain and anger swirled inside her mind. She remembered vaguely that he had been set on abandoning her only a few weeks earlier; this was probably a lucky coincidence in his eyes.

"So much for that," Beckett said, almost indifferently. "I was hoping he would give in when he saw you." He looked down at her and a leering smile crept onto his lips. "I thought you were convinced that he was in love with you. Guess you were wrong, hmm?"

Norrington tore his eyes away from Jack's retreating ship and stepped over to them. "Chivalry's dead." He reached down and gripped onto one of her arms, hauling her up. He held her there a moment, staring down at her, and for the first time since their unexpected reunion, there was something other than undisguised loathing in his eyes. The anger seeped back into them slowly.

He handed her over to Beckett. "Keep her locked up. Make sure she doesn't try anything stupid."

Helen caught one last glimpse of the grey-white sails and shining wood before Beckett led her back down the ladder to the dark decks below.


	15. Fifteen

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: This chapter took a whole day to write, when they usually only take a few hours. To be sure, I had quite a few distractions, but still, a whole day? Anyway, read, enjoy I hope. Please review, give me some sort of feedback.  
(I should probably mention that, unfortunately, I am going on yet another two week vacation, starting this Saturday, so there won't be any more updates until at least mid-August, unless I write a lot faster. I'm sorry! Last two-week trip this summer, I promise! And believe me, I would much rather be writing these than be where I'm going. Extra long chapter, though!)

**Chapter Fifteen**

The _Black Pearl_ followed the HMS _Endeavour_, if not closely, then relentlessly. Jack was sure that Beckett noticed – how could he not, what with the _Pearl_ gliding behind him, to his sides, in front of him like some grotesquely large and malevolent albino dolphin. Jack made sure that the _Endeavour_ was always in sight, but that the _Pearl_ was safely out of the range of her long nines.

And it was only on the third day that Jack realized where they was headed to: land. By midday, when the masts cast the barest of shadows on the deck, the _Endeavour_ was safely moored in the harbor. In his chase, Jack had lost track of exactly where they were, but by the way that the land seemed to stretch on forever, he could guess that they had reached the mainland, Spanish-owned _La Pascua Florida_.

He called for the anchors to be lowered while they were still outside the harbor.

_This must be a trap_, he thought. They had already made it clear that they weren't going to negotiate with him, even entertain his desires for a minute. So what could be their reason for stopping other than to capture him and get him out of their way to get–

The Heart.

What if they were collecting the Heart?

Jack's pulse quickened, and his eyes involuntarily went to the softly pulsing waves that lapped against the side of the _Pearl_, expecting to see a tentacle shooting up from the depths to drag him down to Davy Jones's Locker.

If Beckett and Norrington got the Heart first, everything would be over for him. He would have to retire his pirating ways and flee to the land where he was at least safe from Jones's beasties; he would have to become a begging drunkard, or – horrors! – a blacksmith, or a Jack-of-all-trades (the most pleasing option to him, as being a Jack was not anything very new to him).

He brushed a hand along the _Pearl_'s railing.

His life at sea was the only thing that he would give anything to keep.

"Orders, Captain?" said Mr. Gibbs.

Jack took a moment to tear his eyes away from the _Endeavour_ bobbing in the harbor, pulling against her hawsers. "Yes. We wait until nightfall, then make ready for me a boat."

"A boat, Captain?"

"Yes. I will be going ashore – alone." He felt the slightest twinge of guilt, not telling Gibbs about his plans; he had for a long time been the only man aboard ship tethered to some sort of logic – although the grog was doing its job – and his rational mindset had at least positively influenced Jack when he was feeling most flighty. But this was something that he had to do alone – too many men could mean capture, death.

"_Jack_," Gibbs began sternly.

"I won't be swayed, Gibbs," Jack said, waving his hand dismissively. "Besides, it's not as if I'm going to be running into a naval establishment shouting, 'Look at me! I am a pirate, a wanted man, and I have a gun!' Please, give me more credit than that."

_Although_, he thought, _my plan's not so different from that_.

"I guess not," Gibbs said, frowning. "Well, I will make sure your orders are carried out, then." He nodded smartly to Jack, a vestige of his years in the Navy, and disappeared belowdecks.

Jack turned back to staring out at the harbor.

_It might be good_, he decided,_ to procure some pistols after all_.

---

Night fell dark and clear, still warm and balmy from the hot day. In the distance, Jack could see the few lights from the harbor town; they were extinguishing gradually as the town settled further into sleep.

The skiff hung over the side of the _Pearl_, at the level of the railings, bumping lightly against the painted wood with every swell of the ocean. Jack lost his grip and fell the last few inches, boots hitting the bottom of the small boat with a jarring force that sent him sprawling backwards. He lay where he was for a moment, during which he listened carefully to the two cables that held him up and prevented him from plummeting into the water. They held.

He could see most of his crew staring down at him from over the wooden rails, some of them perched on the rat lines or only peeking through the wood. They were grim, disappointed that they would be stuck on the _Pearl_ and not on land where there was rum and wenches. Obviously they mistrusted Jack when it came to things like this, especially when he announced that he had to go on a secret mission alone, and not to expect him back until morning.

He tried to quell some of that burning suspicion now. "I hopefully will be back before dawn," he said, "if all goes well. Lower me, if you will."

They did, although it was a bit jerkier than usual. Jack supposed that he was fortunate that none of the men got out a knife and cut the lines.

He set out the oars and started pulling towards land. He was lucky; the sea was calm, and so the only water that sloshed in was from the small rogue waves. The _Pearl_ grew slowly smaller, but he could still see figures out on the deck, facing towards him.

When he finally reached the docks, his arms aching and a fine sweat covering his brow, he rowed out of sight of his crew, so they would think he was safely ashore. And with as much care and silence as he could manage, he headed for the _Endeavour_.

From so far below it, he could still tell that Norrington had set out a heavy watch. Marines with rifles stood at the railing, looking out over the water; sailors lounged on the deck, playing card games. Somehow he avoided notice, and he maneuvered to the stern of the ship, below the wide windows of the officers' quarters.

The skiff bumped lightly against the wood, and Jack reached out to grasp the top of the limp rudder. With his other hand, he felt inside his jacket and pulled out the grappling hook he had hidden away earlier.

There was a banister maybe ten or so feet above that stretched from larboard to starboard in front of the stern windows that would lead him right where he wanted to go – Beckett's plans for the Heart. This was his last chance to hopefully get an advantage over Beckett, get to the Heart before him, become the Pirate King of all the world's seas. Well, that last bit would have to wait, provided he actually did find the Heart first. And provided he didn't lose it.

A shout from above sent his heart racing and set his mind on the task at hand. He froze, but no one challenged him.

Staring up at the banister, he started loosening lengths of the thick rope. This would be a tricky job. If he threw it too hard, too soft, too high, too low, the hook could easily hit one of the windows, thereby alerting men with guns to his presence. He had one chance.

But he had stalled long enough. "What the hell," he muttered under his breath. He swung the hook up with as much force as he dared and held his breath.

No clangs of metal on glass, no broken windows, no more shouting, no figures peering out the window. Just a dull _thunk_. Jack pulled gently on the rope. The metal hooks settled further in place, biting into the hard wood; the rope went taut in Jack's hands.

He grinned.

Of course it wouldn't do for him to be part of the way up only to have the hook slip, sending him splashing into the water. He tested his weight on it slowly, only satisfied that it would hold after he had hung on it with feet in the air, pulled down on the rope hard, yanked it sharply.

Wrapping the rope once around his hand, he prayed silently to any and all gods he could think of and began his ascent.

His arms were still weak and jellied after the long row into harbor, but with his bare feet pressed firmly against the side of the ship, he was able to hold on tightly enough. Still, he was relieved after he passed by the windows of the wardroom and was able to grab onto the banister.

There was no light inside. He realized now that Beckett might be in there, sleeping, and that he should have arranged some sort of diversion that would send Beckett and Norrington on land for long enough for him to search their rooms, or at least search this one. But it was too late for that. He could just shoot the bastard, anyways.

The window wasn't hard to break. He tapped it a few times with the butt of his pistol, and small cracks webbed out from the points of impact. He went about his work quietly, a little bit at a time, and had to rip away one of the wooden grilles before he could just barely fit inside. And by the time his bare feet touched the floor, littered with small shards of glass, he was confident that he was alone.

Limping across the room and swearing loudly under his breath, he felt around on a low table and found a candle with a tinder box set out next to it. Jack brought it all over to the windows, careful to avoid the glass shards this time.

It took him only a minute to ignite the dry tow, and even less than that to light the wick of the candle and throw the flaming piece of flax fibers out the window.

He turned to look at the room now bathed in a yellow light. He would start his search at the desk, paying special attention to any secret compartments – the short time he had worked with Beckett, he had noticed his penchant for things hidden in such a manner – and then maybe look around his bed, under the pillow, under the mattress–

Something glinted in the darkness.

Jack cocked and aimed his pistol in the direction of the slight movement, but it was gone and completely dark again. "Beckett, is that you? It's no use hiding, if you'll just come out with your hands in the air and give your pistol to me, then we can have a nice, nonviolent chat."

There was a silence, then: "Jack?"

That wasn't Beckett's voice – unless he had suddenly decided to become a eunuch and now sounded very much like the frightened woman he was.

Jack raised the candle higher and advanced slowly. There was a sudden movement, just outside the candle's light. Jack raised his pistol and got ready to fire, no matter–

A body slammed into his. The attack caught him so much by surprise that he stumbled backwards a few steps before he caught his balance and nearly dropped his candle.

And the attacker was gripping him, their arms wrapped around his middle and he realized that they must be trying to break his spine. As soon as he wasn't in danger of falling over backwards, he tried prying the arms off with his pistol, but they were determined to stay fastened. Long hair glinted menacingly in the candlelight, and– hold it. He could count the number on one hand of sailors with hair as soft as this.

"Thank God, Jack. I'm so happy you're here. I was so sure that you were going to come for me, and then you didn't and then I thought you were just going to abandon me–"

"Helen?"

She looked up and did her best to glare at him. "Of course it's me."

He stared back at her, and she eventually turned her face away and rested her cheek against his chest. He lowered his pistol, uncocked the hammer, and scooted backwards so that he could set the candle and the pistol down onto the table. He patted her back with his now-free hand. "Er," he said awkwardly, "is Beckett–"

"He left a while ago. He didn't say where he was going, so I don't know how long it will be until he gets back, so we had better hurry–"

He pulled back from her. "_We_?"

"Yes. We need to get out of here. If they catch you–"

"Listen, Helen."

"I'll listen to you later, once we're safe," she said, pulling him towards the broken window. "Beckett was really shaken by the way you followed him, you know–"

But Jack didn't move, and when she pulled more insistently, he tugged his arm out of her grasp. "Helen, I don't have time. Listen: have you seen any maps or… or slips of paper, or has he said anything about where the Heart is located?"

"What?"

"The Heart. _Think_, Helen."

"I– What? Can't we–?"

Jack turned around and picked up the candle, walked erratically around the room. "Where is the goddamn map?" he muttered under his breath. "A sign, any sign. That bastard is probably out there now, probably has it already. No, mustn't think that, must keep up morale."

"I don't understand." Her voice was flat, dangerously so. He heard some glass crunch under her shoes.

He sighed, closed his eyes and tried to compose himself. A few seconds to explain it to the girl couldn't hurt that much. "Helen, sweetheart." He placed one hand on each shoulder. She looked up at him like she knew what he was going to say; best not to prolong the pain, he decided. "I didn't come here for you. I came here for a sign of the Heart, because without that, I will surely be dead soon. And if I'm dead, who will be there to rescue you, hmm?" He smiled at her, cheeky, but it faded slightly when he saw the stare she was giving him.

"So," she began slowly, "so you could care less what happens to me? Always you first, isn't it? Look at this," she cried, leaning forward into the light and brushing aside her hair.

There was a large bruise on her neck, a few days old by the look of it, the edges yellow and green and the large center a vivid purple; she looked like she'd been attacked with a yardarm. But really, Jack had seen worse – a bruise heals.

"Please, can I come back with you?" she pleaded, gripping his forearms. "I– I don't want to be here anymore. I hate it here. They're going to kill me; Beckett will kill me eventually, just for fun. He'll _kill_ me, Jack."

"You can't come with me." He yanked his arms away from her, and she stumbled forward a few steps. "And what will Beckett think when he comes to see you gone? He'll know that I was here, and then he will kill me and then he'll kill you. Be sensible, Helen."

"_Jack_," she said sharply.

"You're _not_ coming with me. You're safer here." He bent down so that he could examine the bottoms and backs of each drawer. He set the candle on the floor and bent over so that he could see beneath it. Beckett was very clever with things like this; he remembered once when Beckett had made him wait a long time in his office, he conducted a quick perusal of the room and found Beckett's secret cache of money stowed beneath the bottom drawer of his desk.

There was a soft click behind him. In a soft voice, Helen said, "Jack, stand up."

Jack closed his eyes, hand still resting beneath the drawer. "I would have thought you above this, love."

"Don't say that to me," she said fiercely.

He looked up. The candlelight threw strange shadows across her face, sharpening smooth contours, shifting her features erratically. Her eyes seemed moister than usual.

He stood and walked slowly towards her, hands up and fingers splayed. "Sweetheart–"

"_I will shoot you, Jack_. Don't come any closer." Her voice rose and wavered.

"Listen to reason–"

"I'm tired of listening to you! Patronizing me, treating me like a child," she spat. "I'm going to shoot you, Jack."

He raised an eyebrow. "To accomplish what, exactly?"

"I– shut it! I can do it. I will do it!" Her fingers tightened on the trigger.

Jack closed his eyes. He had been shot before, several times, several times in places that should have killed him, but he survived each time. No matter that this time he was standing still, at point blank range, making no attempt to stop her. He would survive.

The reverberations of the shot rang in his ears, drowning out all sound – but he felt no pain. His hands explored his chest, but found no holes, no growing patches of metallic red. He opened his eyes wide.

She held the pistol pointing towards the window. A larger part of the panes had been blasted away, and more shards of ragged glass covered the floor like large chunks of sand. He noticed that the pistol shook in her hand.

Helen wiped her free hand across her eyes. "Go, Jack."

There was stomping outside the door, shouts.

Jack stopped in front of her for one second, even as he heard the guards scrambling to find the key – he wanted to say something to her, but he couldn't find the words – and then he sprinted to the now wider opening of the window, wincing as more glass forced its way into the soles of his feet. He was part of the way down the rope when he heard the door slam open.

He let go of his hold on the rope, twisted in the air before he splashed into the water so that he entered with as little disturbance as possible for such a short fall. The cuts burned, salt water seeming to tear his wounds open with a brutal force. It took all his strength to hold his breath long enough to swim around to one side to avoid the bullets he knew would be hitting the water any second.

---

Norrington heard the blast on the deck beneath him, the shattering glass, the exploding powder. He didn't stop to consider for one second that he had seen Beckett leave earlier that night, that he knew that the room was locked and empty – except for Helen.

His stomach dropped unpleasantly.

By the time he reached the door to Beckett's chambers, pushing through the crowding sailors and marines, the door had been unlocked and there were more, louder shots resounding inside.

Norrington had a second to take in what he could see of the situation: several men stood looking out the broken window, rifles and pistols pointing down to the water; a grappling hook tied to a long rope lay on the glass-covered floor just inside the window; Helen sat curled in a far corner with her face in her hands, a pistol by her side. "What is going on here?"

One of the men at the window turned. "We lost him, sir!"

"Wh– Lost who?"

"The man! We didn't get a good look at him." He stared significantly at Helen. "_She_ would know, though, sir. Jeffrey said that he heard talking just before the gunshot."

Norrington walked slowly over to Helen. He bent down in front of her and picked up the pistol. She looked at him through her fingers, her eyes haunted and hollow. "Where did you get this?" he asked, voice quiet and urgent. "You weren't supposed to have a pistol." But he already knew the answer before she spoke – he had seen this pistol before.

She shook her head, gently at first, then more violent and insistently.

"It was Jack, wasn't it? Jack came for you."

Her shoulders trembled. Very quietly, she whispered, "I wanted to shoot him so badly."

When he looked out the window, Norrington thought he could see the indistinct form of a skiff floating slowly away, out of the harbor.


	16. Sixteen

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Huzzah! I have returned to the world of fanfiction! No time to edit at the moment, so sorry for any errors.

Chapter Sixteen

Beckett was overheating. He puffed, a bit out of breath as he struggled up the steep hill. He thought of the pleasant evening he could be having, back on the _Endeavour_ or in some comfortable in, sitting in a feather bed while being fed pastries by a beautiful young woman.

Instead he was sweating in his overly heavy coat while trying to find his way in the dark through the dense foliage.

It really wasn't fair, but he didn't have anyone to blame but himself. Well, there were always others to be blamed. But in this case, there was no one else he could _reasonably_ blame.

He hit aside another dangling branch from one of the low trees with his cane. It hadn't seemed like such a long walk the first and last time he had made it. In fact, he suspected that the foliage had grown denser and thicker in the intervening months just to spite him.

There was one thought that kept him cheerful and optimistic: the Heart. He knew now that there was no way Jack could have gotten to the Heart before him. He'd won their little race, come out victorious, and he could see no reason for which to be merciful.

Happily, he stopped for a moment to admire the run down hut that had just come into view. The roof was partly caved in by the weight of a tree branch resting on it, there were saplings that had sprouted up around it and were now reaching toward the light, and ivy had long ago crept its way up the walls and thrust its roots into cracks in the walls.

To him, it looked like a mansion.

The door fell off its hinges when he tried shoving it in, and it fell with a loud _smash_ and a cloud of dust. He stepped over it, the wood creaking beneath his boots.

It was very dark inside, but then he didn't need light to remember this room. He had been imagining it every day for the past few weeks, as they drew closer and closer to it. He stepped easily around the low table in the entryway, around the crates that scattered the floor long before his eyes adjusted to the pitch dark.

There was a tinder box snugly shut sitting on the mantelpiece. The tow had managed to stay dry, for which Beckett was very thankful. He set about lighting the flammable fiber in the dark, and there was a sudden spark of light, giving shape to his surroundings. He carefully lit the candle, and only then did he allow himself to look at the jar.

It stood about to his waist, made of clay or terra cotta, something earthy that kept its contents cool. He had placed it behind several crates, leaning casually against the wall. Since he last saw it, the spiders had been at work, so that now it was covered with dust and layers of cobwebs.

He brushed all this aside in his eagerness as he set upon it. The lid was a tight fit, as he had requested, so it took some prying to get it loose. When it finally did, he threw it to the ground behind him, and part of it shattered on impact.

Beckett thrust his hand down into the dark. He felt nothing.

After a few tense moments of this, he pulled back, puzzled. He took up the candle and held it over the mouth.

_Nothing._

He threw the candle to the ground, but before the light extinguished fully, it glinted off of something laying at the bottom of the jar, and he thrust his arm in and balled it in his fist. Shaking, he flattened out the letter on the mantelpiece.

_You lose_.

His heart stopped. Had Jack–?

But signed at the bottom was _Davy Jones_.

The Heart was gone. After he had gone through so much trouble to hide it, it was gone. Gone, gone, gone–

He heard a faint explosion.

Beckett spun around and waited in silence, hardly breathing.

Another explosion.

Without much thought to anything else, he set off at a run down the hill, gripping his cane by his side and allowing the branches to slap him in the face and chest and stomach. The trees broke and he was on the cleared road again that looked out over the harbor.

The_Flying Dutchman_. She was moored less than a cannon-shot away from the _Endeavour_, her sails still dripping and water still sloshing out from every crack. He could see activity on all the ships immediately surrounding the _Endeavour_, but nothing compared to the panic he saw on his own ship.

Winded, but back on the HMS _Endeavour_, Beckett sought out his admiral. "What is going on, Norrington?" he said, finding him at the railing, looking over at Jones' ship.

"Jones' ship appeared just a few minutes ago, sir."

"And?"

"And nothing. He's been sitting there this whole time, as though he's waiting for something."

Beckett squinted across the water at the _Flying Dutchman_. It was strange; he didn't see anyone on deck. It was completely still, and for that, all the more menacing. They watched, waited silently, and gradually the activity on deck subsided, until they were all waiting.

Finally, Beckett gripped the rail and shouted, "Come out, Jones!"

There were two long moments of silence. Then the deck seemed to come to life, sailors stepping out of the very walls, stretching and grinning. Even across the water, he could hear the _thump! thump!_ of Jones' peg-leg. He threw open the doors to his cabin; he was smiling, as much as a man with a squid for a face can smile.

"I'm surprised it took you so long, Beckett."

"Yes, well, we were held up, several times," he said. "I assume we should thank you for that?"

Jones laughed humorlessly, but didn't answer.

"How long have you had it?"

Norrington at his side seemed to realize for the first time what they were talking about. He stiffened and glanced down at Beckett, but got no confirmation.

Jones grinned. "For a while. You really need to learn how to cover your tracks better. In fact," he said, and paced a little ways down the ship's rail, "I could teach you a thing or two about choosing the right man to keep a secret such as that."

"What do you mean?" Beckett didn't like being at anyone's mercy, and especially not Jones'.

"All of this–" He motioned around them "–could have been easily avoided, if you had chosen a dependable man to make that jar of yours. My first piece of advice? Choose a man that's not afraid to die."

Two members of the crew dragged a man forward, who had not yet been absorbed into the ship. He recognized him – the man who he had paid to construct the jar that would house Jones' heart. "I beg your mercy, Lord Beckett," the man wailed. One of the crew kicked him down; they seemed to delight in this.

"I'm afraid mercy is one of the many things you won't get from me," Jones said. "You should have considered the consequences when you treated me so badly, Beckett; I might have had pity on you." He stepped back from the railing, nodding to his men without ever taking his eyes from Beckett.

Beckett was frozen in his place. He knew what was coming, but he just couldn't make himself move. He heard Norrington shouting orders to the men to ready the ship; they had to escape. Beckett leaned his forearms against the rail, hanging his head, until he heard the cannon ports opening.

The next few minutes were full of wood and panic and screams and fear. His _Endeavour_ was brutally smashed to bits by Jones' cannons, and many of his men were ripped with her. As another volley of shot shook what was left of the ship, Beckett leapt over the side, landing hard in the water – but he was conscious and alive. He swam a few feet back to grip onto a floating barrel and watched his ship being destroyed before his eyes.

Norrington came swimming towards him, towing along behind him something that looked like a large bag of clothing, until the bag lifted its head and then he realized that it was Helen. "We have to get away, sir," Norrington said urgently.

Beckett nodded absently, and they set of swimming toward the docks. Men drowned behind them; it was a rare sailor that could swim. But all Beckett could see was the wood of the dock piles before them, and all he could hear was the echoing of cannon fire behind them.

Norrington was struggling toward the end of it, trying to hold up himself and the girl. He gripped the dock eagerly. Several pairs of hand reached down and helped pull them up, smothered them in blankets. No one spoke.

Beckett turned to look at the wreckage. Jones' ship was gone, and all that was left were a few bobbing sections of masts, shattered wooden boards, and bodies of drowned sailors. He turned away from the sight, looking instead out to the wide sea.

There was another ship floating on the water out there, flying a white flag, and beneath it, Jack Sparrow's ensign.

To one of the worried dockmasters, Beckett said, "We will require a skiff."


	17. Seventeen

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Please enjoy; and it warms my heart to hear from people who like what I do.

**Chapter Seventeen**

Jack stood on the deck, looking up at the tattered and dirty white flag. It looked unnatural, flying above his own flag, but it had worked; Norrington strained at the oar paddles of the borrowed skiff, and Beckett drew ever closer to the _Pearl_. Helen was with them, he noticed, huddled weakly beneath several layers of blankets, along with several soaking wet sailors.

Gibbs appeared next to Jack and stood watching the approaching boat. "Captain–"

Jack didn't need to hear the rest of his sentence to know what he was going to say. "'Captain, have you lost it? Are you crazy, mad, daft?'" Gibbs looked chagrined. "Yes, perhaps I am. But perhaps not. What leverage does Beckett have at this moment, when he has nothing?"

"He may not have his ship, but he is still the head of the East India Trading Company."

"Well," Jack said, "let's hope that we can make him a man of the East India Trading Company who also looks out for the interests of the _Black Pearl_."

Gibbs was a good first mate: whatever he thought of this last statement, he said nothing.

When the skiff touched the side of the ship, hands reached down to help pull its passengers up. Beckett stood aloof from them all, glaring at Jack with open dislike; Norrington looked around the deck, defiant but a good deal more curious than Beckett; Helen clutched on to the rail, not looking at any of them.

Jack approached her with open arms and a wide smile. "Helen," he said warmly.

She backed away, partly hiding herself behind a surprised Norrington.

Jack stopped, shocked and more than a little bit hurt. He looked at her, trying to convey the injury on his face, but she wouldn't look at him, unless it was to judge where he was moving next so that she could always keep Norrington between them.

Norrington glared at him.

"So, Jack, I assume that the white flag means that you want to talk," Beckett said, looking the opposite of dignified in his soaking wet clothes.

"You make it sound as though I'm petitioning for your mercy," Jack said, easily falling into the familiar sarcasm. "But we all know that you're in no position to give me that. In fact, I think it's the reverse. The advantage usually goes to he who has the larger ship, is that not true?" He looked dismissively over the side of the ship at the skiff tied to the side. "I think I'm awarded that."

Beckett was frowning, beaten, just the way Jack liked to see him. Years of working under the man, enduring countless insults, obeying his every whim had not made Jack very fond of him.

"And speaking of your ship, I thought I saw her go under. I hope that that wasn't your only ship?"

More silence from Beckett.

"You mean that you have no second, better plan? I'm ashamed of you, Beckett, after all you taught me about being prepared–"

"She wasn't our only ship," Beckett snapped. "Are you mad? The East India Trading Company isn't foolish enough to think itself above such dangers. However–" His voice trailed off. "However, it may take some time to get a new one–"

Jack was wary, and he had every reason to be. However long he'd known Beckett he had never been the sort of man to talk about his troubles in such away, to give valuable information away to the enemy. He was manipulating him, but Jack didn't know in what way.

Hang manipulation. Opportunity called, and that was a siren song that Jack couldn't ignore.

"I have a proposition, Cutler," Jack said abruptly.

Beckett raised an eyebrow, and he saw Norrington shift uneasily, trying to get Beckett's attention no doubt. "What proposition is that?"

"You're short a ship."

Beckett's lips pressed into a thin, displeased line.

Jack looked around him. His crew was watching him warily, trying to anticipate his next move. "I have a ship."

"I'm listening."

"What if I let you use this ship, in your quest for Davy Jones?"

Beckett stood silently for a long time, staring with that unnerving intensity of his that he once told Jack was really the best way to discover a liar: liars cave quickly, honest men are able to withstand the silence. Jack crossed his arms and met his gaze.

Beckett didn't like this. "And what's in this deal for you?"

"Two things," Jack said, raising his fingers.

When Jack didn't immediately continue, Beckett said, "And those are–?"

"One–" He held up one finger. "I hate Davy Jones, and he has tried to kill me in the past, so I would venture to say that I have quite a lot hanging on whether or not he is allowed to run free in the sea with his little squid friend.

"Two," he said, holding up two fingers. "Thanks to my selfless offer and sacrifices in the search for a deadly criminal, you will name me a hero, and I will be pardoned and free for the rest of my days."

"No," Beckett said, shaking his head hard. "No, Jack. No. You're asking too much." He turned away and walked towards the railing.

"And where will it end?" Jack called after him. Beckett stopped to listen. "Where will Jones' destruction end? He'll just sink any number of ships you bring into your service. It's impossible to fight him by yourself, Cutler."

Beckett pivoted slightly, turning one ear towards Jack, and Jack knew that he had got him.

"If you ever hope to stop Jones – to save countless innocent lives, and of course, to save your commodities – if you ever hope to stop him, you need to act right now, before he gets support, before he gets even more powerful." He took a half-step forward. "Your only hope to ensure peace in the Caribbean is to crush him _now_."

He observed Jack warily, as though he thought that he might see the lie written on his face, if he just looked hard enough. "You seem to have a great interest in my commodities," he said, a smile tugging the corner of his lips in spite of himself.

"I could care less about your commodities," Jack said. "But I do care about mine."

One or two men laughed behind him; Norrington wore his 'oh-dear-not-this-again' expression. Jack grinned.

"So," Beckett said, pacing a bit closer to Jack, "you would let me and my men borrow the use of your ship, even though my orders are to make sure that you hang? You plan to share a ship with people that can't wait to see you dead?"

"Well, of course I'll have to have some form of a guarantee that such a sad event won't occur, at least not while you are _guests_ on _my_ ship."

"What sort of guarantee?"

"First off, you can only keep three of your men, all of them of my choosing. You will sleep down below with my men–"

"These sound like more conditions to me," Beckett remarked dryly.

"Guarantees, conditions, there's really not much of a difference," Jack said, waving his hand dismissively. "Anyway, you will also partake of the usual chores about the ship, and you will not complain about it. When addressing me, you will refer to me as 'captain' or 'sir.' And," Jack said, building up the suspense for his real intent, "you, Beckett, will act as my personal footman."

"Are you _mad_?" Beckett flushed and, however much he tried, couldn't get out more than that.

Jack smiled innocently. "I think it's only fair." His smile faded, time for business. "So what do you say, Beckett? Will you give in, if it means that you will be able to destroy Jones before he destroys you?"

Jack thrust out his hand into the empty space between them.

Beckett had little choice. He walked the last few steps as though they were a grievous inconvenience, as if he had the luxury to do otherwise.

At the last moment, Jack pulled his hand away. "Footmen," he said, grinning wide, "don't shake hands." He thrust his hand face-level at Beckett and wiggled his rings.

Beckett slapped his hand away, fuming and about ready to burst. Jack knew when certain limits were reached, and this was one of them. He draped an arm around Beckett's shoulders and turned him to face his men, holding him close to his side. "So now I get to choose from your men, right?"

He didn't protest.

Jack knew just the sort of man he was looking for: not the young recruits, who might be too power hungry and might side more with Beckett, but the bumbling fools, the lieutenants that have failed the lieutenant's exam five times, that were landsmen for most of their lives before taking up the uniform on a whim. He chose two such men, as far as he could tell, and a mixture of fear and surprise and pleasure showed on their faces as they crossed the gap between what was left of the East India men and the pirates.

He knew all along who he would choose last.

He smiled and pointed to Norrington. "And the tall one there, with the funny hat."

Norrington looked petulant, and he walked over the railing on Jack's side and crossed his arms.

This left Helen with nothing left to hide behind, unless she were to drag over one of the ten or so sailors that had accompanied Beckett. She tried the tactic of pretending not to notice.

"Come on, Helen," Jack said, his voice taking on more of a gentle air than before.

The storm that had been building for Jack couldn't guess how long exploded. "Come on? _Come on?_ Come on, what, Jack? I could have died, you left me for dead, and now you just expect me to come trotting back like a trained dog? I hate you!"

But he was pleased to see that she ran down the stairs into the decks below and not down the rope to the skiff.

"Well," Jack said, "I hope that will work itself out."

"Unlikely," Norrington said.

He turned to Beckett, his back purposefully aimed towards Norrington. "Anyways, do we have a deal?" He offered his hand again, this time for a deal-sealing shake.

Beckett accepted it. Neither man seemed willing to loosen his grip or drop the hard stare first.


	18. Eighteen

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Please, please, please, if you read this, leave me a quick review – it makes my day, and it makes me write these chapters faster and with more enthusiasm. So really, a few kind or helpful words get you several thousand words of this story – win-win situation. (:  
Sorry about any confusion caused earlier. Problems fixed!

**Chapter Eighteen**

It was easy for Helen to fall back into everyday life on the _Pearl_, almost as if there had never been that terrifying interlude of being kidnapped and held hostage. Except that two very potent reminders – three, counting Jack – were all very close quarters with her.

She spent most of her time shadowing Mr. Gibbs, much to his chagrin. He may not have approved of her – he called her a pariah several times, all in her presence, and probably many more times when she wasn't around – but that made her feel safe. At least Mr. Gibbs didn't have some frightening ulterior motive in mind.

And he seemed at least slightly glad to have her back, since she could cook, more or less.

She had him picking weevils out of the flour, so she could make biscuits that would probably turn out to be more like hardtack. "So," he began awkwardly, and she shot him a dubious look. "So, how was… it?"

"It being?"

"You know." He peered rather hard at something that could have been a weevil or maybe some sort of small pebble. "Your time over on the _Endeavour_."

"It was great."

He squinted at her. "Great?" But her expression told all. "Ah," he said, "that kind of great."

"How have things been on the _Pearl_?"

"Oh, just fine."

"How has everyone been? Cotton? Marty?"

"They've been, well, fine."

"That's nice." She couldn't ask him what she really wanted to; she didn't want to look so much like the fool she was. So that she had a chance to stop obsessing about it, she focused more on the work that she was doing. Weevils, Helen reflected, are very disgusting creatures. She pushed a rather fat and wriggling one aside with a piece of stick she found on the floor.

Gibbs guessed the direction of her vague questions. After a pause, he said, "Jack has been–"

But he didn't need to continue, because they heard the clattering of boots down the stairs and Jack poked his head around the doorframe. "Hey," he said, and Helen looked determined back down at her weevils. "You. Helen."

She couldn't help herself; when he said her name, her reflex was to look up. He knew she was listening.

"I need to talk to you," he said, lounging in the doorway in an outwardly casual way, but Helen noticed the awkward way he crossed his arms, where he placed his feet. "Now, if you will."

"I'm pretty busy at the moment," she said.

He strode over. "Oh yes, sorting weevils, that is certainly a job that decides whether or not this ship sails. If there were weevils in my bread, I just don't think that I would be able to captain the ship."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm–" she began, all but growling at him.

"Stop wasting your time, Helen." He noticed Gibbs. "And you! You should know better! Don't you have some very important job to be doing elsewhere, first mate?"

Gibbs looked grateful to have such an easy out of the battle. "Oh, that's right. Well, I was just taking a short break, captain." He stood, brushing his hands free of flour and his pants free of weevils. "I suppose I should go and check to make sure the _Endeavour_ men are playing nicely with our crew."

"That sounds like an idea to me."

Gibbs closed the door behind himself.

Helen had brushed most of the flour back into the small wooden barrel when Jack turned back around to her. "Helen–"

"I think I'll follow him. They might have something for me to do on deck." She made a quick lunge for the door, but Jack was quicker. She stumbled a little, and he gripped her arms. Helen went still. "Let go of me, Jack," she said quietly.

"We really need to talk."

And this was another thing that annoyed Helen about Jack: treating her like he always knew what was best for her, like he even had her best interests in mind, not just his own selfish desires. That smug smile– like he thought she was too dense to even comprehend the gravity of the situation.

"I think that you made perfectly clear whatever you plan to say when you left me for dead."

His grip loosened, and she pulled easily away from him, but again his hand was there, pressing against the door, and no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn't get it open with him pressing his whole weight against it.

"That's not fair, love," he said quietly. "I told you– you know that in the long run–"

"No long run, Jack. You don't get to do something like that to someone and just walk away with no consequences. I'm not letting you."

He stared at her, his eyes dull, and the fact that he had no immediate response told her that she was right. She pushed his arm out of the way–

Jack gripped her wrist, twisting it uncomfortably as he pulled her violently into his chest. The way he smiled down at her frightened her: there was something off, not right, something predatory about his grin. "You haven't let me get a word in. Is it because you're worried about what I might say?"

She looked down, breathing quickly, her hand at eye level.

"What is it that you're so afraid of me telling you, Helen?"

"Nothing." She drew herself up a bit, but still didn't have the nerve to look him in the eye while she lied. "I have nothing to fear when it comes to you."

"Is that right?" He was stronger than she would have guessed, though her panicked mind reminded her that she probably should have expected such. He pressed her up against the wall, one knee separating her legs and pinning down her dress so that it would be harder for her to run – or kick him, for that matter.

Jack didn't need to try hard to remind her that she had a lot to fear, when it came to him.

"Are you going to fight me off now?" He smirked, shifted his hold on her arms, pressing them against the wall, so that she had nothing to protect herself with, so that there was nothing separating them. In a low voice, he said, "Believe me, Helen, if it had been at all possible at the time, I would have gladly rode in on my white horse and saved you from the horrible torture you no doubt went through at the mercy of a sadistic bastard like Beckett. But would that have been a wise thing to do?" He shook his head. "I wouldn't have been of any use to you dead, sweetheart."

"Who said you were useful?" It was a small dig, but a point for her nonetheless.

But Jack was hardly fazed. He gazed down at her, somehow looking at her through his lashes and looking down his nose at her at the same time. "I can be very useful; but that can only happen if you reciprocate that usefulness. You might want to remember that."

A sudden thrust from the door shoved her forward into Jack's chest, and they both stumbled back a few feet.

"Oh."

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to knock?" Jack snapped.

But Norrington was staring at Helen, now held fast by Jack's arms. "Beckett wanted to see you about something," he said.

"My footman calling me to his side?" He grinned down at Helen as if he hadn't just had her at his mercy against the wall. "Unacceptable. I'll have to take this, my dear."

He let her go quickly, and she hurried to the counter, lightly placing her fingertips along the top, and leaning against it for support.

"This won't take long, hopefully," he said to her.

Things were quiet again with the door closed. She leaned down and rested her face in her hands.

But not for long.

The door opened again and, again, Norrington's tall frame filled the doorway. He ducked, and the crest of his hat brushed the top of the doorframe. "What did I just walk in on?" he asked.

Helen was still on the defensive from her encounter with Jack. "I don't know what you're–"

"Stop, Helen."

She remembered him talking to her like this once before, but the last time, he had ended up nearly dead. Helen hoped it wouldn't happen again this time.

Helen pressed a hand over one half of her face, feeling exhausted. "Why do you always do this? Like you care how my life turns out?"

"I just figure I should return the favor," he said, the venom in his voice palpable. "After all, you cared about my life once: you wanted me to die."

"So you want to kill me, too. Would that make us even?"

"It wouldn't even begin–" Norrington stopped himself, biting the insides of his cheeks. He crossed his arms and looked up to the ceiling, and when he looked back at her, he was visibly calmer. "What are you doing, Helen?" For the first time, Helen heard a faint hint of actual concern in his voice.

Her walls were not so easily broken down. "I'm not doing anything."

"I mean to ask what you are doing, wanting to come back to Jack. That was all that you thought about on the _Endeavour_, wasn't it?"

Helen turned around quickly, hands planted firmly on the counter. The sea seemed wilder, all of a sudden. "No."

"You can't lie, Helen, not to me."

She looked over her shoulder at him, resentment bubbling up. "You act as though you know me so well."

"I like to think I know you better than Jack does." He pointed to the closed door that opened to the stairs and up to Jack. "You mean to tell me that your life here is so much better–?"

"I don't know," she snapped. "I don't– don't know." She pressed her back against the solid wood and let herself slide down, resting her head uncomfortably against the counter behind her. She couldn't help but think of a similar situation, a few weeks earlier, when she still thought Jack loved her. "Where else do I have to go? I was condemned to death in the Colonies, and such a sentence will be upheld wherever I go. They'll catch me eventually. This is the only place where I have a chance at a new life."

"On Jack Sparrow's ship?"

"At least he doesn't lock me up alone in his cabin. I still have some freedoms here, a lot more than I'd have anywhere else."

Norrington crossed the room and leaned against the counter next to her, arms still crossed. "You could go back to your husband," he said quietly. Helen saw him look down at her with a slight tilt of his head.

"How? Like I said–"

"I could have your death sentence removed," he said. She stared up at him. "I'm not dead, am I?"

Helen wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, looking straight ahead at the door. "That would be– James, you couldn't do that."

"Probably not." But he was smiling softly, staring at the same door.

"I wouldn't go back to him anyway. I doubt that he would have me back." She shrugged. "He probably already has a new wife, probably has the children I refused to give him. Men of his power are little affected by things like that."

"Probably."

Helen stood up slowly, careful not to meet his eyes. If she met his eyes, she wouldn't be able to–

She reached out and placed a hand very lightly on his chest– and waited.

Norrington brushed away from her and closed the door behind him.


	19. Nineteen

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: Alas! My clever ploy to get more reviews failed! Oh well. Keep on reading, all of you, enjoy, and if you want to make it a reciprocal relationship (as it should be), leave a review. I really love writing scenes between these two – I think they bring the worst out in each other.

**Chapter Nineteen**

Jack found Beckett in his cabin, sitting at his desk, looking at his things. A childish jealousy and even more infantile hatred rose up in him, and he wanted more than anything for Beckett to stop touching _his_ things, like Beckett was violating part of his very _soul_ by reading his ship's log. "Hey," he said sharply.

Beckett glanced up, looking completely at home sitting in the cabin of a ship that didn't belong to him. "What?" He let the battered log fall shut. "Oh, there you are, Jack."

Beckett still hadn't moved. It was unthinkable. Jack couldn't fathom how Beckett managed to keep that superior smirk on his face even when the man knew that, if he decided he were so inclined, Jack could take out his pistol and shoot the bastard in the head, and no one would do anything but to throw the body overboard. "Get out of my chair," he said, and what was meant to be a growl came out as an absurd squawk. He waved his hands in the air for greater effect.

Beckett took his time pushing himself out of the chair, and Jack was right at his side, pulling it away from his hands as soon as his butt left the seat. He pushed it under the table while glaring meaningfully at Beckett.

There was a long awkward silence, during which they both stared hard at each other. Jack, willing Beckett to speak first so that he could prove his point, that he was the _captain_ of the ship, the one in charge; Beckett, trying to maintain what little control he had over the situation, a new feeling for him and one that he didn't like at all.

Finally, Jack broke first. "Norrington said you had something to say to me? I would appreciate it if you would just be out with it, because I have tons of more important things to do." Ha, he showed Beckett who was inconvenienced.

Beckett stared back at him, finally closing his eyes and shaking his head, as if to brush Jack off. "How exactly do you plan to get back the Heart?"

It was just like Beckett, always straight to business; if there was one good thing Jack could say about him, it would be that Beckett was not one to waste time. Of course, he wished that this time at least, Beckett could have delayed a bit to give Jack time enough to figure out exactly what the _hell_ he was going to do.

His mind raced; Jack floundered. "That's hardly any business of yours."

"Oh, it's not is it?" Beckett leaned against his table, placing his hands firmly on the tabletop.

"No, I would say that it is not."

Beckett's jaws clenched, and he said, "I would like to know that you have a plan, you know, just to be sure. Since I am entering in a deal with you that puts me at a great disadvantage, I think that I at least deserve to know that you have some sort of plan that could conceivably work." There was a tinge of smugness in the way he tilted his head. "Because we both know how often your plans work, Jack."

"Yes, they work all the time," Jack said stubbornly.

Beckett nodded at his arm, at the burn scar. "Not all the time, apparently."

He was trying his patience. He was doing it purposefully, Jack knew, and after working under the man for so long, Jack knew that the only way to deal with this maliciousness was not to react.

Unfortunately, his body refused to listen to him. Before he could stop himself, before he could pretend he was going for rum, before he could take out his pistol to threaten him, Jack was looming over Beckett, purposefully invading the man's personal space so that he had to take a few steps back. Beckett ran into a low cabinet, and they were forced to stop.

Jack said, "Are you suggesting that you could come up with a better plan? Because I seem to recall seeing your ship smashed to bits after one of your plans went awry." Their faces were less than a foot away; Jack was close enough to smell the powder on Beckett's wig, the tang of bay water, the smell of sweat barely masked by a perfume.

"I'm only suggesting that perhaps you shouldn't be so confident that whatever plan you may pull out of your ass will work without a hitch." Jack opened his mouth, but Beckett said first, "After all that trouble, after following me over countless miles of sea, after following a false trail, after nearly sacrificing a girl for your own goals – where are you, Jack? Where are you now? Do you have the Heart, after all that? Better yet, do you even have a map? Where have your plans got you?"

Jack's mouth screwed up like he had just taken a swig of soured wine, and his insult-muscles worked and strained and _oh just you wait, Cutler, I will burn you with my sharp wit_– "Well–" Jack said. "You're– you're _short_." He put as much venom into the word as he could, as much insinuation, as much hate that he could, but alas.

Beckett smirked up at him. "I'm hurt, Jack. No one in my life has ever called me short before– you yourself have never called me short before. Oh, how the wound burns me. You have indeed won this battle, I admit defeat. You have scored one over me–"

"That's enough!" Jack said, spinning around and pacing the length of the room in irritation.

"You haven't seemed to realize yet, Jack, but appearances mean nothing. You may be able to win some women over with your charm, but who do you think they'll end up turning to? A pirate with _nothing_ or a Lord that can provide for all their desires?"

"That was a very childish thing to say," Jack snapped.

"You are a very childish man for reacting to it. Have I perhaps hit a nerve?" He smiled, cocking his head and watching Jack's pacing.

"No nerve," Jack said gruffly. It was only because of her proximity that he thought of Helen– the closest woman to him physically at the moment, because she was on the ship, not because– No, Helen, if it so pleased her, could choose someone like– Anyway, it didn't concern him, the matter didn't concern him at all.

Interrupting his thoughts, Beckett said, "I believe you changed the subject, Jack."

Jack looked up at him with fairly feverish hate. He wanted to snap back at him that _no, you did it first, you loser_. "I did, didn't I? Oh yes, yes, my plan, oh yes, I have a plan."

"And that plan is?"

He hated the quirk of his eyebrow whenever Beckett looked at him with skepticism. Jack was older than the whelp, they were practically the same age, there was no reason for him to treat Jack like such a child. "Well," he said, his voice suddenly calm. "There's one thing I have to do before I do anything else."

Beckett leaned forward, listening.

He crossed the room to where Beckett stood before the man could move out of the way and grabbed him violently by the collar of his coat, dragging him across to the door of his cabin. "First, I kick you out of _my_ quarters." He stopped just before he pushed Beckett out onto the deck. "Second, if you ever question my leadership again, I'll have no choice but to toss you overboard."

The swinging doors cut off Beckett's outraged expression from Jack's view.

But even the satisfaction of showing Beckett who was captain on this ship couldn't improve his mood, the despair which he had been free of until Beckett's _questions_.

Just what was his plan to defeat Jones? He couldn't exactly approach him in the same way that he did all other prey: Jones' ship could go underwater, after all. Not least of all was the fact that there was some supernatural power about the _Dutchman_, something that even the _Pearl_ couldn't ever hope to rival, as much as Jack hated to admit.

He peeked his head out his doors; Beckett was gone. "Gibbs!" he shouted, spotting the man lounging on deck not ten paces away.

Gibbs started and jumped to work, scrubbing the deck with a holystone.

"Gibbs!" Jack said again. "I know you were sleeping on the job; no use pretending otherwise. Get over here!"

"Aye, captain." Gibbs didn't meet his eyes, but came to stand in front of him.

"Tell the men to set sail."

"Any direction in particular, captain?"

Jack thought a moment. "To Tortuga. South-east, generally."

"Aye aye, captain."

Before he could escape, Jack said, "And send Helen here. We never did finish our chat."

He let the doors slam shut behind him and heard the first shouts, the first thunder of bare feet on decks, the calls of the men climbing up into the rigging above. Now he would just have to wait. But what he was waiting for, he couldn't say.

At least he had a bearing.


	20. Twenty

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own anything from _Pirates_, unless it's a character I created (like Helen). But everything else belongs to Disney.

**Author's Note**: I'm back. Maybe. I will finish this, though. It just might take a bit longer than I had previously hoped, because school's going to be crazy until– well, for the rest of the school year. Currently, I'm trying to find a way to wrap this story up in as few chapters as possible, because I hate making you all wait for months between posts, and I have other stories I want to write. In the meantime, thank you so so so much to all of you who have kept on reading this! It's those random little reviews in the middle of my hiatuses that guilt me back into writing the next chapter. I hope that you'll see this out to the end! (: Enjoy reading; and please review!

**Chapter Twenty**

Helen was none too pleased to see Jack again. She didn't say so, but she looked like she would if she weren't so frightened and so busy keeping as close as she could to the door without angering him further.

Jack was still pacing when she came in, sometimes pounding his fist in his open palm, sometimes crossing his arms, sometimes muttering to himself. But when the door closed behind her, he stopped and stared at her for some time, with enough intensity to make her visibly nervous.

She took a few steps back. "What?" she said, and the sharpness that was supposed to be there was overtaken completely by her fear. Her voice shook.

How hard was it to hold a normal conversation? He could keep his thoughts – the thoughts that were nagging him, absorbing all his attention, threatening to make him crazy until they were put down – he could keep them to himself. What could he gain from revealing them to her when he hadn't had enough of a chance to fully examine them first?

All he had to do was ask her for her opinion on what they should do to catch Jones. Kill three birds with one stone: a normal conversation would possibly get her to hate him a bit less violently, she would feel more involved in her fate thus improving her mood some, and Jack might get some ideas out of her that would work, because his strategy was currently taking a vacation.

Instead, he said, "Love or money?" and the words came out in a rush, slurring together like he just couldn't wait to get them over with.

Helen stared at him with increased caution. "Beg pardon?"

"How should we catch Jones?" he said suddenly. _Skillful save_, he thought to himself.

She looked half curious and half as though she didn't want to know. "No, what did you say before?"

"Before? I didn't say anything before."

Another part of his mind was slowly taking control, drowning out the panic from perhaps making a misstep and the equally urgent cries for a plan to find Jones. _Shut it, you two. With me in charge, you have nothing to fear. Not only will we crush Jones like the little squid he is, we will win ourselves a bonny lass._ And in this state of sudden calm, he could hear the creaks of the rocking ship, smell the salt in the air, and, for once, think clearly.

It was so obvious to him now: obviously, part of him had actually been fearing for Helen's life, quite desperately, and this was why he had been feeling so scattered and drained over the past weeks. And now that she was safe back home on the _Pearl_, there was only one thing left for him to do before he could have full possession of his faculties – he would have to bed her.

It was the only way, and it made perfect sense to him.

He felt a bit like a predator stalking its prey, his mind in the same calmed and focused state that he imagined the great hunters also experienced. He took a few purposeful steps towards Helen, thinking ahead far enough to approach her from the side so she would have to back away from the doors, away from her mode of escape.

"What are you doing, Jack?" Her voice rose to a breathless squeak at the end when she ran into the low cabinet that contained all his rum.

_Perfect_, the predator inside Jack said. _No place to run, all mine now._ "All mine," he whispered.

She tried to dart quickly to the side, around the cabinet, but Jack stopped her and pinned her against the wall in one fluid movement. His face right next to hers, he murmured, "Now, where were we?"

And he kissed her.

This was something Jack knew, something he understood very well, something he was comfortable with: the prey, the chase, the capture, purely physical, an arching body pinned beneath his, moist lips, teeth, warm breath. He was used to _owning_ things, he was used to _possession_.

Helen was pushing against his chest with tightly balled fists, but he hardly noticed; it just made him push harder, excited him even more.

Finally, nature got the better of him and he had to pull away to take a few deep breaths.

She stared up at him and Jack noticed for the first time how large her eyes could get, and their color – a dull brown. He leaned in again. Helen turned her head away, and he ended up with his nose practically in her ear, but he had always been good at improvisation. He bit her earlobe lightly and delighted how she shivered beneath him.

Helen seemingly used this momentum to finally push him far enough away that she was able to slip out from beneath him; he gripped her arm.

Her face was bright red and shining. There was no desire mirrored in her eyes, just fear. "What– what the hell are you doing?"

Jack gripped her face tightly between his palms and caught her lower lip between his teeth, steering her towards the bed when she was caught off-guard. Before she could struggle free, the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed hard and she fell backwards. Women looked the most beautiful like that, Jack decided: her hair radiating out from her flushed face, her most lips–

He moved to trap her beneath him but she somehow managed to squirm her way out and jumped up the minute she was free. "What the hell, Jack?" She was by now in hysterics.

"What?" To say he was annoyed would be ignoring the vast ocean of adjectives that might better describe his mood: enraged, fuming, frenzied, maddened, raging, vicious, wrathful. He felt especially wrathful.

He couldn't remember the last time a woman had denied him – well, not counting Elizabeth, but he had never really approached her outright or exercised his full charm to woo her – and he didn't like it, he didn't like it at all.

Helen stood very still but for her shaking, her arms clutching her shoulders as if to hold her innards inside her chest, or just to keep Jack from lunging and grabbing. Her mouth gaped rather unattractively. "What are you going to do to me? Are you going to rape me?" She seemed to come back to herself after this, little by little. "Leaving me for dead isn't enough for you?"

He twisted around so that he was lounging back onto his bed with an ease that he didn't feel. "And what if I were rich?"

"–What?"

"If I were rich, would you let me bed you?"

She stared at him, and her cheeks grew to be a bright, unattractive red. "Are you suggesting– that I would have sex for money?" She snapped, "I am no whore, Jack."

"All women are the same. You're motivated by one thing and one thing only: money and prestige. Well, that was two things, but they're basically the same. You would choose a rich man over a poor one that you love, just because the rich one has all the _ways_ and _means_." He paused, then added in a quick, low voice, "I bet you would fuck Norrington or Beckett for the sheer virtue that they're powerful–"

"No!" Her voice was raw and shrill. "What are you saying? They're the ones responsible for getting me into this mess in the first place, they're the once that sentenced me to death and put me on that goddamned ship. If it weren't for them, I would still be back at home and _happy_ and not tired and hungry and cold all the time–!" She stopped when she saw Jack's bitter smile.

"And yet you won't sleep with me, a man who obviously cares so much about you, much more than they ever will. I saved your arse, Helen."

"You aren't so different from them in my mind."

Jack growled, "I am a world different from them."

"If you were so different, you would have saved me from their ship. It's not like you didn't have a chance."

"Did you ever stop to think that maybe I didn't want to save you?" It was the most hurtful thing he could think of saying, and it worked.

She did stop now. "I don't–"

"Think?" Oh yes, if she wouldn't let him get the tension out _that way_, then he would make her hurt for it. "You never do think, do you? Did you ever stop to wonder why I kept you on after I found your little map?" He stood up and walked over to her slowly; she didn't back down, but she didn't look him in the eyes either. "You're no use to me any longer, Helen. And if you won't cooperate, then you have nothing that I want. You're just a nuisance, a waste–"

She shifted suddenly, and Jack braced himself for the sound slap that he knew he deserved this time – but nothing came. She lightly cupped her hand over one side of her face, as if she were the one that had been slapped, her eyes blank and staring. She swallowed hard, murmured something indistinct, but Jack thought he heard _fool_.

"I'm through with you," he said, turning away from her. His pulse was faster than he cared to admit; it wasn't as though he'd just stood against Jones or anything. She was _just_ a girl; and the fact that she wouldn't give herself to him – well then, what use was she to him?

So why, when he heard her badly concealed sob, heard the door shut quietly behind her, did he want to run after her and apologize?

Jack Sparrow never apologized.

**Author's Note**: Don't forget to review! (:


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